"It makes a lot more sense to invest in jobs, in job training, and in education than spending incredible amounts of money on jails and law enforcement," Sanders said.

On June 3, Sanders joined Robert Reich, the one-time secretary of labor who has become one of the senator's most visible intellectual supporters, and reiterated his plan to stimulate jobs. Not much had changed: Sanders still wanted the government to intervene and create more work for people, which on top of a higher minimum wage would stimulate the economy. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, was not talking about the day's sluggish jobs report. Sanders was leaning in.

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"These are bad labor reports, and what they tell me is that we need to put Americans back to work in a very significant way," he said. "That tells me we need to rebuild our infrastructure, a trillion-dollar investment over five years creates 13 million jobs."

As his campaign faces a murky finish — even a triumph in California is unlikely to stop Clinton from winning a majority of pledged delegates — Sanders has continued his two-track approach to media access. He holds daily news conferences designed to push one of his daily messages. He also argues that the end of the primaries begins a period where superdelegates can flip the nomination to the primary's runner-up — himself.

For the moment, the approaches complement each other. The media that travel with Sanders and report on his message will likely vanish after June 7, and certainly vanish if he ends his campaign. But that media can hardly be expected to report on his every idea, as consistent positions do not fit the usual rubric of "news."

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In Berkeley, where Sanders met with Reich, the story was that the senator's agenda should have been implemented.

"The last three months, we've seen a market slowing in creation of new jobs," Reich said. "It's slowing down, it's slowing down partly because Congress has not seen fit to enact the sort of policies Sen. Sanders has called for, like infrastructure spending."

Asked what he would recommend to turn around the economy in the near term — what, for example, President Obama could do without going through Congress — Sanders largely pivoted back to his platform.