Sanders Calls For Party Unity To Defeat ‘The Worst Republican Candidate I’ve Seen In My Lifetime’

Bernie Sanders appeared on three Sunday talk shows (and the day is still young) ahead of his Monday Democratic convention speech. We’ll pick though those appearances one by one here, but — in general — the Bern came out with all Vermont guns blazing. And these appearances all happened as the DNC not-so-quietly “quarantined” DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz from the convention. This move, which Sanders has argued is long overdue, followed a Wikileaks dump of 20,000 DNC emails, which revealed that officials mocked Sanders and wanted him to answer questions about his faith. Overall, the emails showed a pattern by DNC officials to undermine Sanders’ candidacy and favor Hillary Clinton.

Sanders suspected as much during the entirety of primary season. This bothers but does not surprise him, and it would be hard to blame him for lashing out to this effect. That’s exactly what Trump wants him to do. On Twitter, the real estate mogul has been goading Sanders supporters by saying the Bern would be “a fraud” to not drop his Clinton endorsement.

However, Sanders has set aside any slight against him for what he feels is the greater good. He believes his goals will be satisfied if Donald Trump fails to become president, and that was his message on all three Sunday shows.

First, Sanders dropped by State of the Union to speak with Jake Tapper. He’s thrilled at how Clinton has absorbed many of his progressive stances into her platform, and the Bern wants to get down to business: “The focus, though, that I am going to go forward on right now is to make sure that Donald Trump — perhaps the worst Republican candidate in the history of this country, somebody that by temperament, somebody that by ideology — must not be president of the United States.” Sanders resolved to do anything possible to make sure that Clinton defeats Trump, and then the Bern will zero in on “the real issues facing the American people” including wealth disparity along with access to higher education and healthcare.

Sanders also popped up on This Week with George Stephanopoulos to reiterate all of these sentiments and rebuff any suggestion that he should run as a Green Party candidate. Sanders reemphasized his desire “to defeat the worst candidate for president I have ever seen.” Sanders also waved aside the notion of his supporters switching to Trump, who Sanders says lacks substance and relies upon a platform filled with prejudices and insults.

Sanders completed his Sunday morning trifecta by chatting with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press. The Bern characterized Trump as a lying liar and “perhaps the worst Republican candidate in the history that I’ve seen in my lifetime.” Sanders assured Todd that the emails have in no way affected his support for Clinton. This is all about the endgame of defeating Trump.