Democratic leaders on Wednesday refrained from calling on Bernie Sanders to drop out of the Democratic presidential race, but they did hint it’s time for Sanders to quickly figure out his next move now that Hillary Clinton has won enough delegates to clinch the nomination.
“I believe that only Sen. Sanders can make that judgment,” Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., said when asked by reporters if Sanders should end his campaign.
Still, Becerra suggested Sanders will have to decide soon. He pointed to Clinton’s candidacy in 2008, when she dropped out in June of that year after Obama won the requisite delegates.
Clinton, Becerra said, “understood that President Obama had enough delegates to secure the nomination.”
Becerra said Clinton “did some deep thinking and emerged from that process understanding that it was critical that we united around our presumptive nominee. We did that. He was president for two terms.”
Another Democratic Caucus leader, Vice Chairman Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., who is a staunch Clinton backer, said Sanders needed to make a move to unite the party against the GOP.
“I do think that we’re coming to that point where we have to come together to focus on the greater threat,” Crowley said. “I don’t think Sen. Sanders views Hillary Clinton and her presidency as a threat to the United States and to the world. I do think he believes that Donald Trump is. And that’s the greater threat we have to focus on.”
