Sanders, Clinton Meet for First Time Since Becoming Presumptive Nominee
The candidates met after polls closed in the DC primary.
— -- On the night of the final nominating contest of the 2016 presidential primary season, presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and her rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, met at a downtown Washington, DC hotel just blocks from the White House on Tuesday night.
At about the same time the 40-minute meeting began, the Associated Press projected Clinton would win the Democratic primary in the District of Columbia.
Earlier on Tuesday, Sanders spoke to reporters outside his campaign headquarters in northeast Washington. He called for changes to the Democratic Party and outlined specific policy proposals he said he thinks the Democratic National Committee should adopt to make the party more inclusive, including new leadership, eliminating super delegates and universal same day voter registration.
However, he dodged questions about his political future.
When asked why he was refusing to endorse Clinton, he said: "I think that what has to happen and what this fight has always been about is transforming America. It is standing up for working people, it is fighting for a progressive agenda which serves the needs of working people and not powerful corporate interests and we are going to take that fight into the convention in Philadelphia.”
He added that presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump “is totally unfit to be president of the United States."
Clinton delivered a speech earlier on Tuesday in which she launched into her sharpest broadside yet against, Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.