Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) confirmed with a “yes, yes” this morning that he’ll be voting for Hillary Clinton in November.
Asked on MSNBC this morning if his vote will be for Clinton or against Donald Trump, Sanders replied, “Well, look, I don’t want to parse words right now.”
“What I am trying to do right now is to make sure that the Democratic party becomes the party that represents working people, not Wall Street, that is prepared to have an agenda that speaks to the need of creating millions of jobs, raising the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour, dealing with climate change, dealing with pay equity,” he said. “Those are the issues that we need to have not only in a platform, but we need Democratic leadership to be implemented.”
Sanders, who has still not dropped out of the race, is taking his sizable share of delegates to the Democratic National Convention at the end of July in hopes of steering the party platform to the left.
“I think the issue right here is I’m going to do everything I can to defeat Donald Trump. I think Trump in so many ways will be a disaster for this country, if he were to be elected president,” the senator said. “We do not need a president whose cornerstone of his campaign is bigotry, is insulting Mexicans, and Latinos, and Muslims and women; who does not believe in the reality of climate change when virtually every scientist who has studied this issue understands we have a global crisis. This is not somebody who should become president.”
“What my job right now is is to fight for the strongest possible platform in the Democratic convention and as we speak in St. Louis, that’s going on right now. And that means a platform that represents working people that stands up to big money interests and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Asked if he’d accepted that he won’t be the nominee, Sanders noted, “I’m pretty good at arithmetic, and what I know is that Hillary Clinton has more pledged delegates than I do, and she has a lot more super-delegates than I do.”
“But what I also know is we’re bringing 1,900 delegates into the convention, that we have received 13 million votes and that what I am going to be doing right now, and I’m starting this afternoon, heading to Syracuse for an event this evening, is we are — we are going to be urging millions of people to get involved in the political process,” he said.
“Why would I want to [withdraw] when I want to fight to make sure that we have the best platform that we possibly can, that we win the most delegates that we can and that we transform — the goal of our campaign was to transform this nation.”
Sanders has advised his supporters to never lose the sense of outrage that drove them to support him over Clinton.
“Why are we the only major country on earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all people? You tell me. Are we too dumb, we can’t do it? Why do we not do what Germany does and make sure that we have free tuition at public colleges and universities. That is a good investment for America,” he said.
“Why do we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth? These are things we should be outraged at. And yet, for a variety of reasons, you know, those issues are pushed aside and we’re told how wonderful everything is. Well, it’s not wonderful if you’re a working person.”
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