The Note: What Bernie Wants

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June 14, 2016

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What Bernie Wants

Meeting of the Minds

After more than 12 months of competing against each other for the Democratic presidential nomination -- and on the very last day of the primary season -- Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will, for the first time all year, sit down with each other in person and talk. Sanders is headed back to Washington, DC this morning for a much-anticipated meeting, ABC's MARYALICE PARKS reports. The sit-down is expected to take place this evening, after polls close in the District of Columbia, which is also holding the final primary in the Democratic Party's nominating process. Prior to the face-to-face meeting, Sanders plan to speak to his colleagues in the Senate and then attend a picnic for members of Congress and their families at the White House.

What Bernie Wants

Sanders spent the weekend in his hometown of Burlington, Vermont with some his top advisers and supporters strategizing about his next steps. During interviews Sunday morning, Sanders said he was hoping to hear "a commitment" from the former Secretary of State during their meeting about changes to the party and its priorities going forward, ranging from Wall Street reform to party fundraising.

Will Sanders Suspend?

There is also ongoing debate about whether the senator will at some point need to -- or whether he should -- formally announce that he is endorsing Clinton or suspending his campaign, PARKS notes. Some of his staff and surrogates worry that a move a like that could undercut his ability to negotiate on policy ahead of the convention, while others think it could be necessary down the road. Over the weekend, the senator himself said only that he was taking his campaign to "transform the Democratic Party" to the convention.

Analysis -- ABC's Rick Klein

History shall record that Donald Trump spent the final day before his 70th birthday being as Donald Trump as he knows how. All conventional wisdom about how a politician responds to a terrorist attack or a mass shooting had gone out the window with Trump's first series of Tweets, where he accepted congratulations for being right and called on President Obama to resign from office. Before Trump started speaking in New Hampshire, he had suggested that the president secretly might want ISIS to succeed. By the time he was done, he had misled his audience about the Orlando shooter's birth status, and expanded his proposed Muslim ban to include all immigration from parts of the world with established ties to terrorism. At some point, the talk about a new Donald Trump, or a reined in Donald Trump, or a "presidential" Donald Trump – all of it will fade away. What's left is a man who has played to the anger and fears of the American people to astounding effect, and apparently won't stop until he's either elected, or not.