(Good morning friends! I am still on my ‘mini-vacation’ of sorts so another ‘open thread’ for the day. Tomorrow my fiancee takes her citizenship-test!!!! so I will miss one more edition, but will be back with a full roundup of Bernie news (whatever it may be!) Wednesday. In the meantime… please continue what you already do so well in the comments below! -LieparDestin)
Bernie Sanders just finished holding a press conference at his house in Burlington, Vermont. Bernie met with the press on his lawn, surrounded by his top supporters, who gathered on neighboring lawns to hear Sanders speak.
According to CNN, the first thing that Bernie spoke about was the tragic Orlando mass shooting which occurred in the early hours of Sunday morning, at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
Sanders again spoke out against the Orlando shooting, calling it “unimaginable” and a “horrific mass murder.” He also, somewhat uncharacteristically, called for the destruction of ISIS in the wake of the worst mass shooting in American history, which has already been linked to the terrorist organization.
Following his comments on the Orlando shooting, Sanders moved on to speak about the election. The conference had originally been planned as a meeting with his top supporters about where the Bernie Sanders campaign is going in the wake of his presumptive primary loss, and while Bernie Sanders has promised that his presidential bid isn’t over, he took pains to let his supporters and the press know that his first concern was stopping a Donald Trump presidency.
Sanders said later that the meeting was “exciting and productive.”
Crowds of supporters gathered across the street from the conference to hear his remarks.
Bernie Sanders told reporters outside of his home in Burlington, Vt., on Sunday evening he will take his campaign for transforming the Democratic Party to the convention in July.
Rumors have swirled that Sanders may end his campaign as soon as next week, after the D.C. Democratic primary, following rival Hillary Clinton becoming the party's presumptive nominee. But on Sunday he said he plans to bring his campaign "into the convention" — while adding "we know who has the most votes."
Sanders comments followed daylong meetings with some of his top supporters, in which he sought input for how the campaign should move forward.
The Vermont senator also plans to meet with Clinton Tuesday to press her to embrace his progressive agenda.
On ABC's "This Week" Sunday, Sanders said he and Clinton will discuss "if she wins, what kind of administration she will have."
"What I need to see [is] a commitment that there will be progressive taxation," Sanders said.
"Will she go as far as I would like her to go? No, she won't," he said. "But I think millions of people want to understand and see is what kind of commitment she has to addressing the real crises in the country."
Bernie Sanders said Sunday morning that he will likely meet with Hillary Clinton on Tuesday evening, the same day the Democratic Party’s nominating process officially comes to a close with the final primary in Washington, D.C. An aide with the Clinton campaign also confirmed the meeting to ABC News.
During an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, the Vermont senator said the two of them would discuss Clinton’s priorities as well as the party’s platform, which he hoped would be the “most progressive” the party has adopted to date.
“What I need to see is a commitment that there will be progressive taxation, that Wall Street and the large corporations who are making billions of dollars a year and billionaires start paying their fair share of taxes so we can address the crises facing inner cities and the fact that we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth,” Sanders said.
He also discussed other key parts of his own agenda such as expanding health care, fighting climate change, and making public colleges tuition free, which he hoped to discuss with Clinton, too.
“I think what millions of people really want to understand and see is what kind of commitment she has to addressing the real crises in this country and transforming the Democratic Party away from a party which simply is there in many respects, to raise money from the wealthy into a party which listens to the pain of a declining middle class,” Sanders said.
Senator Bernie Sanders said on Sunday that he would “take our campaign for transforming the Democratic Party into the convention,” refusing to concede the presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton though not explicitly saying he would challenge her for it.
Mrs. Clinton earned enough delegates to clinch the nomination last week, but Mr. Sanders has declined to end his campaign. He has contended that he could persuade enough superdelegates, the party leaders who have overwhelmingly backed Mrs. Clinton, to switch their support to him by arguing that he would be the stronger candidate against Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
That plan became more improbable last week as high-profile Democrats supported Mrs. Clinton. President Obama endorsed her on Thursday, calling her the most qualified candidate ever to seek the White House and imploring Democrats to unite behind her. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts also endorsed Mrs. Clinton. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the only senator to endorse Mr. Sanders, told CNN on Friday that he now supports Mrs. Clinton.
In recent days, Mr. Sanders appeared to acknowledge the odds against him, and began speaking less about beating Mrs. Clinton and more about working to defeat Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.
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According to a person who attended the meeting at Mr. Sanders’s home Sunday, and who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private gathering, there was no talk from Mr. Sanders about trying to win the nomination. The group was keenly interested in how the senator’s meeting with Mrs. Clinton on Tuesday will turn out, and whether he would get assurances that she would fight for his ideas, this person said.
While he is effectively no longer a threat, Mrs. Clinton and the Democrats are counting on Mr. Sanders to eventually get behind her candidacy. He has a loyal base of more than 10 million voters and an enormous donor list that Mrs. Clinton will want to tap into. Some of his supporters say they will not vote for anyone but Mr. Sanders, so Mrs. Clinton’s success may depend on how vocally the senator supports her.