Sanders still in race, wants to ‘make certain’ Trump is defeated

The primaries are officially over. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are attacking each other over the Orlando tragedy.

Final touches are being made to convention plans. Running mates are being vetted. But on Thursday night, Bernie Sanders stood at a podium in a small, chilly television studio here pointing his index finger at a camera and insisting to his supporters that his campaign is fighting on.

With five bright lights illuminating him, Sanders delivered a shortened version of his stump speech via live stream to his supporters, saying his “political revolution” was just beginning and reeling off the many injustices it would set about to end.

Although it covered a lot of ground, from the influence of money to poverty wages to fracking to the cost of college, the speech did not include the one thing some Democratic leaders have awaited: an endorsement of Ms Clinton, who last week became the presumptive nominee.

“The major political task that we face in the next five months is to make certain that Donald Trump is defeated and defeated badly,” he said. “I personally intend to begin my role in that process in a very short period of time.”

But if that sounded like a hint he would get behind Ms Clinton, in his next breath he made clear that helping her was not necessarily his top priority. “Defeating Donald Trump cannot be our only goal,” he said.

"We must continue our grass-roots efforts to create the America that we know we can become. And we must take that energy into the Democratic National Convention on July 25th in Philadelphia. "

Mr Sanders’ advisers say he wants assurances Ms Clinton will fight for his ideals before he throws his support - and potentially the support of millions of his voters - behind her.

Throughout the speech, Mr Sanders seemed defiant as he repeated his critiques of economic, racial and environmental inequalities in the country, this time with the spotlight a bit dimmed.

As Mr Sanders spoke of continuing his political revolution, much of the mainstream media that he regularly bemoans had moved on.

CNN dedicated its coverage to the Orlando massacre, while Fox News hosts discussed the scourge of terrorism. MSNBC aired the beginning of his remarks live and then cut away.

But Mr Sanders' core supporters, who have given his cause voice on Twitter for more than a year, were still there for him. The hashtag #OurRevolution became the fourth-most popular in the United States as he spoke.

Some of his fans quoted his every word, others expressed nervousness that he might formally drop out of the race.

One die-hard supporter of Mr Sanders summed up his feelings for the candidate by invoking the Batman movie “The Dark Knight”: “The president we needed but didn’t deserve.”

The Sanders campaign said the speech was streamed to at least 218,000 people. Some were gathered at Bernie-watching parties, like one in the East Village of Manhattan, where 20 supporters in the upstairs dining room of the Bareburger restaurant broke into raucous applause when he said his 12 million votes proved that his was not a radical campaign, but rather "mainstream."

Jessica Stokey (43) a television editor, shed tears when Sanders suggested he might eventually endorse Ms Clinton to help beat Mr Trump. "I don't know if it's just my imagination, but it looked to me like the bags under his eyes got bigger and his face grew more thin," she said.

“That’s when I started crying.” “It’s like knowing the zombies are here and you have to save your child, that’s how heartbreaking it is,” she added.

Despite not endorsing Ms Clinton on Thursday night, Mr Sanders showed signs that he was pivoting to other races, imploring supporters to run for “school boards, city councils, county commissions, state legislatures and governorships.”

He kept his feud with the Democratic Party leadership on a low boil, criticizing it for letting Republicans dominate state legislatures.

“We need new blood in the political process, and you are that new blood,” he said. “I have no doubt that with the energy and enthusiasm our campaign has shown that we can win significant numbers of local and state elections if people are prepared to become involved.”

At 23 minutes, the speech was one of the shortest Mr Sanders had given since beginning his campaign last year. Afterward, Mr Sanders left the studio, walking briskly with his wife, Jane, and campaign spokesman, Michael Briggs, to a waiting car without answering questions shouted at him by reporters, including several who asked when he planned to endorse Ms Clinton.