US Senator Bernie Sanders on Monday endorsed former US vice president Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, encouraging his progressive supporters to rally behind the presumptive Democratic nominee in an urgent bid to defeat US President Donald Trump.
“I am asking all Americans, I’m asking every Democrat, I’m asking every independent, I’m asking a lot of Republicans, to come together in this campaign to support your candidacy, which I endorse,” he said in a virtual event with Biden.
The backing came less than a week after Sanders ended his presidential campaign, which was centered around progressive policies such as universal healthcare.
Photo: Bloomberg
There were early signs that some leading progressives were not ready to fully follow Sanders’ lead, and Trump’s campaign was eager to use the endorsement to tie Biden more closely to Sanders, whose identity as a democratic socialist is objectionable to Republicans and some Democrats.
Still, Sanders’ embrace of Biden was crucial for someone who is tasked with bridging the Democratic Party’s entrenched ideological divides. Democratic disunity helped contribute to former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton’s loss to Trump in 2016.
Perhaps eager to avoid a repeat of that bruising election year, Sanders offered his endorsement much earlier in the campaign. He backed Clinton four years ago, but only after the end of a drawn-out nomination fight and a bitter dispute over the Democratic platform that extended to the summer convention.
Biden and Sanders differed throughout the primary, particularly over whether a government-run system should replace private health insurance. Biden has resisted Sanders’ “Medicare for All” plan and has pushed instead a public option that would operate alongside private coverage.
Sanders said that there is “no great secret out there that you and I have our differences,” but the greater priority for Democrats of all political persuasions should be defeating Trump.
“We’ve got to make Trump a one-term president,” he said. “I will do all that I can to make that happen.”
The COVID-19 outbreakprevented Biden and Sanders from appearing together in person.
However, they made it clear that they would continue working together, announcing the formation of six “task forces” made up of representatives from both campaigns to work on policy agreements addressing healthcare, the economy, education, criminal justice, climate change and immigration.
Biden has already made some overtures to progressives by embracing aspects of Sanders’ and US Senator Elizabeth Warren’s policies.
The day after Sanders exited the race, Biden came out in support of lowering the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 60 while pledging to cancel student debt for many low and middle-income borrowers.
He also previously embraced Warren’s bankruptcy reform plan.
Sanders is sure to remain a force throughout the campaign.
When he ended his candidacy, he said that he would keep his name on the ballot in states that have not yet voted to collect more delegates that could be used to influence the party’s platform.
He did not say on Monday whether he would continue to fight for those delegates.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
INSTABILITY: If Hezbollah do not respond to Israel’s killing of their leader then it must be assumed that they simply can not, an Middle Eastern analyst said Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah leaves the group under huge pressure to deliver a resounding response to silence suspicions that the once seemingly invincible movement is a spent force, analysts said. Widely seen as the most powerful man in Lebanon before his death on Friday, Nasrallah was the face of Hezbollah and Israel’s arch-nemesis for more than 30 years. His group had gained an aura of invincibility for its part in forcing Israel to withdraw troops from southern Lebanon in 2000, waging a devastating 33-day-long war in 2006 against Israel and opening a “support front” in solidarity with Gaza since
RSS