"If you look at issue by issue, we have Hillary Clinton who wants to significantly raise the minimum wage because we have millions of workers in this country working at starvation wages," Bernie Sanders says. Sanders on Clinton support: 'It's not about the lesser of two evils'

Bernie Sanders had a message for his unhappy supporters Wednesday, a day after he formally endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination: Donald Trump must not win, and supporting Clinton is not a decision to back the "lesser of two evils."

Sanders, speaking to ABC's George Stephanopoulos on "Good Morning America," responded that it is "absolutely imperative for the future of this country that Donald Trump not be elected president of the United States."


"And what I say in a time when this country has enormous crises, we do not and cannot have a man with Trump's temperament, with the nuclear code and running this country," Sanders said.

Stephanopoulos pressed, "So it's about the lesser of two evils?"

"No, it's not about the lesser of two evils," Sanders said. "If you look at issue by issue, we have Hillary Clinton who wants to significantly raise the minimum wage because we have millions of workers in this country working at starvation wages."

Facing the same question on NBC's "Today," Sanders characterized his decision as "a choice about making sure that the middle class of this country, which has been in decline for 40 years, gets rebuilt."

Sanders also brushed aside a question about whether FBI Director James Comey's comments last week that Cinton was "extremely careless" with her handling of classified information on her private server while secretary of state.

"Well, look, Hillary Clinton is not a perfect human being, and Bernie Sanders is not a perfect human being. And you know, that's the way life is. But I think what we have to focus on is, this is what I said yesterday in my remarks—it's not Donald Trump as a person, it's not Hillary Clinton a person," Sanders said on NBC, explaining that it was a question of the needs of middle-class families.

The Vermont senator did not make reference to specific differences between himself and Clinton on minimum wage and on others, and as he did Tuesday, focused on the common ground between their ideas, vis-à-vis Trump.

"Donald Trump wants to allow states to have the right to do away with the concept of the minimum wage. People could be working for five bucks an hour," Sanders continued on ABC. "Hillary Clinton wants to expand health care. Hillary Clinton wants to make public colleges and universities tuition-free for all families in this country making $125,000 or less. Trump wants to end the Affordable Care Act and throw 20 million people off of health insurance. Trump does not even believe what the entire scientific community is telling us about climate change and the need to transform our energy system."

Asked whether it might help if he ran as Clinton's vice president, Sanders said Clinton needs to "get around the country and make the case for "which candidate for president is stronger for the American middle class, for working families." The answer to that will become "very clear," he said.

"That issue has not been raised yet, and I doubt that that will happen," Sanders said when pressed on whether he would consider being her running mate if asked. "Well, look, right now what my job is ... to make sure that Hillary Clinton is elected president, that we defeat trump and come up with a set of principles and an agenda that speaks to the needs of working families. And I'm very proud by the way that over the last couple of weeks, as you may know, that the Democratic platform now is the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party. And that Secretary Clinton, I think, is speaking about some of the very real issues that impact our people."

As far as the trio of swing-state Quinnipiac polls showing Trump leading or tied with Clinton in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, Sanders reiterated that it is on Clinton to make an effective case.

"Which candidate has more to say about education, more to say about health care, more to say about climate change, more to say about income and wealth inequality, more to say about a sensible foreign policy and I think the more the people hear the contrast between the two, I think Secretary Clinton's support will grow," Sanders predicted.