Following a private meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders announced that he is willing to work together with Hillary Clinton to defeat Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president.
“I look forward to meeting with her in the near future to see how we can work together to defeat Donald Trump and create a government which represents all of us and not just the 1 percent,” Sanders told reporters outside the White House.
“I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure Donald Trump does not become president of the United States.”
The Vermont senator, however, stopped short of endorsing Clinton, telling reporters he had no intention of dropping out of the race for the Democratic nomination just yet.
On Tuesday, after winning four out of the six primary contests, Clinton surpassed the 2,383-delegate count needed to secure the nomination, making her the first woman in American political history to be a major party’s nominee for president. High-ranking Democrats have since called on Sanders to bow out and unite the party against Trump.
Shortly after Clinton’s victory speech, the White House announced Obama would be meeting with Sanders at the senator’s request, but insisted that the meeting would not include a push from the president for Sanders to drop out of the race.
Pres. Obama walks with Bernie Sanders on way to the Oval Office for meeting. https://t.co/FSAPDo8UkWhttps://t.co/cqVmu4Kl9W
— ABC News (@ABC) June 9, 2016
In his remarks on Thursday, Sanders thanked Obama and Vice President Joe Biden for displaying “impartiality” throughout the bruising primary season.
“They said in the beginning that they would not put their thumb on the scales and they kept their word and I appreciate that very, very much,” he said.
