When President Barack Obama announced that he wouldn’t be attending former First Lady Nancy Reagan’s funeral because of a speaking commitment at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, conservatives were unsurprisingly upset. Now it seems that a whole other political group might not be too happy with the current president — supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. That’s because he told party donors at a private event in Austin to back rival Hillary Clinton instead.
According to a report in The New York Times, Obama “privately told a group of Democratic donors last Friday that Senator Bernie Sanders is nearing the point where his campaign against Hillary Clinton will come to an end, and that the party must soon come together to back her.” At least three anonymous sources told the paper about the president’s pro-Clinton comments — a political sentiment that was later confirmed by the White House.
Mr. Obama chose his words carefully, and did not explicitly call on Mr. Sanders to depart the race, according to those in the room. Still, those in attendance said in interviews that they took his comments as a signal to Mr. Sanders that perpetuating his campaign, which is now an uphill climb, could only help the Republicans recapture the White House.
Attendees also suggested that Obama’s remarks stressed the “urgency” of the party’s need to unite against “an opening for the Republicans” and their leading candidate, New York real estate mogul Donald Trump. Since Clinton had already amassed more delegates than Sanders ahead of Tuesday’s massive tally in her favor, the president suggested that there was no more time to waste.
As of this writing, neither Sanders nor anyone affiliated with his campaign has responded directly to President Obama’s decidedly pro-Clinton statements.
(Via The New York Times)