Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders had a clear message for superdelegates after landslide wins in 6 of the last 7 contests, including nearly 80% of the vote in Hawaii. In an interview with Jonathan Karl on ABC This Week,
“We’ve just won six out of the last seven contests,” Bernie said. “We have the momentum. We won three landslide victories yesterday. And the reason we’re doing well is that we are talking about the real issues facing the American people.”
“You’re assuming that every super delegate who now supports Secretary Clinton will stay with her… I think the super delegates are going to have make a very difficult decision and that is, if a candidate wins in a state by 40 or 50 points, who are you going to give your vote to?”
TRANSCRIPT
JONATHAN KARL, ABC NEWS: And that was Bernie Sanders, declaring victory last night in a rally in Wisconsin. The senator won three landslide victories last night out West in Washington State. He had a decisive nearly 50-point win in Alaska. The margin was even bigger. He scored over 80 percent of the vote and in Hawaii, another blowout.
But Sanders remains far behind in the total delegate count, trailing Hillary Clinton by over 700 delegates. Senator Sanders joins me right now.
Senator Sanders, congratulations. That was a big night.
SANDERS: Thank you very much.
KARL: So you’ve won big out there in those three states. You’re still way behind in the delegate count.
But does that — what does this mean for the race?
Does this mean you are absolutely —
(CROSSTALK)
SANDERS: Well —
KARL: — going through to the —
SANDERS: — what it — Jonathan, what it means is we won three landslides last night. We’ve won six out of seven contests in the last 11 days. We’ve cut Secretary Clinton’s lead by a third during that period of time.
A national poll just came out that had us 1 point ahead of Secretary Clinton, when we started 60 points behind. And every national and state poll that I have seen, virtually every one, has us defeating Donald Trump. CNN had us defeating him by 20 points.
Clearly we have the momentum. And I think, at the end of the day, we’re going to end up with more pledged delegates than Secretary Clinton.
And then I think the super delegates are going to have make a very difficult decision and that is, if a candidate wins in a state by 40 or 50 points, who are you going to give your vote to?
And, second of all, which candidate is better positioned to defeat Trump or any of the other Republican candidates?
I think a lot of the super delegates are going to conclude that it’s Bernie Sanders.
KARL: But you still need 73 percent of the delegates going forward, which is a huge —
(CROSSTALK)
SANDERS: No, we don’t. No, no, no.
KARL: Well —
SANDERS: No, I don’t accept that. That is not the case. You’re assuming that every super delegate who now supports Secretary Clinton will stay with her. You’re not taking into consideration the fact there are hundreds of delegates, super delegates, who have not yet made a decision. We think we can win many of them.
And what we showed yesterday is, in fact, the momentum is with us; we think we’re going to do well in Wisconsin. We think we got a real shot in New York. And then we go out to California. You go out to Oregon. That’s the most progressive part of America. We think we’re going to do very well there.
So I will not deny for one second that we still remain the underdogs, but we have come a long, long way, you will have to concede, in the last 10 months. We do have a path toward victory.
KARL: There were Democrats saying it’s time for you to lay off Senator Clinton — Secretary Clinton, keep this positive now, stop the attacks on her Wall Street ties, her super PAC, all of that.
Are you going to start laying off or are you going to, you know, put the pedal to the metal here?
SANDERS: We’ve just won six out of the last seven contests; we have the momentum. We won three landslide victories yesterday. And the reason we’re doing well is that we are talking about the real issues facing the American people. And campaign finance is one of them.
We have raised now 6 million individual campaign contributions averaging 27 bucks apiece. That’s unprecedented in American political history. Secretary Clinton has super PACs; she has raised some $15 million at least from Wall Street, money from the fossil fuel industry and the drug companies.
Do I think the American people need to know?
That, is that an important issue?
I think it is. Our vote’s on the wall: I voted against the war in Iraq. She voted for the war in Iraq. That’s an important issue. I am opposed to continuation of fracking. She supports fracking. Those are important issues. That’s what a campaign is about.
I do not run negative ads, but clearly contrasting my position with Secretary Clinton’s is what a campaign is supposed to be about.
KARL: So you said in an interview this week that she — suggested she may not be liberal enough to be in your cabinet.
So let me ask you now, after these wins, is she liberal enough to be your running mate?
Would you consider her?
SANDERS: That’s speculation. Hillary Clinton is a person who has enormous — I have enormous respect for, has a very distinguished career. We’re not into speculation right now.
The reason, Jonathan, we are doing so well is we are talking about not speculation, the issues impacting the American middle class, grotesque levels of income and wealth inequality, the decline of the American middle class, the fact that millions of kids are graduating college deeply in debt, the reality that climate change is a global crisis that we have got to deal with and have to take on the fossil fuel industry.
Those are the issues that I’m dealing with, not speculating at this point who my vice presidential nominee would be.
