Sanders on Clinton endorsement: 'We are not there at this moment'

While Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday recounted a conversation with Bernie Sanders in which he said the Vermont senator would endorse Hillary Clinton, Sanders himself declared later in the evening that he is "not there at this moment."

"Oh, I've talked to Bernie, Bernie's going to endorse her, this is going to work out," the vice president told NPR's Weekend Edition in an interview Thursday. "The Democrats are coalescing even before this occurs."


That conversation, Sanders told MSNBC's Chris Hayes, happened "I think it was three weeks ago."

"Look, on that issue, we are trying to work with Secretary Clinton's campaign on areas that we can agree on, where the people who supported me, we got about 12, 13 million votes, and what they want to see, whether it is on … moving toward making public colleges and universities tuition-free, or moving aggressively in terms of health care and moving toward a universal health care system, significantly expanding primary health care, those are the issues that we're working with Secretary Clinton on now and I hope we can be successful," Sanders explained.

Sanders reiterated that he will "do everything that I can to defeat Donald Trump" for "a variety of reasons."

"Number one, he's a pathological liar. That's not a good quality to have in a president," Sanders said. "Number two, he wants to give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the top two-tenths of one percent by repealing the estate tax. He thinks that climate change is a hoax. And most importantly, we cannot have a president who goes around insulting Mexicans, Latinos, Muslims, women and African-Americans. That's outrageous. So I'm going to do everything that I can to see that Donald Trump is defeated."

Asked whether doing "everything I can" would entail going to rallies and campaigning for Clinton like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sanders responded that his focus is on shaping the platform ahead of the full committee meeting next weekend in Orlando, Florida.

"We are working, as we speak, we are working with the Clinton campaign, trying to be able to come forward and say to my supporters out there, you know what, here's the progress that we have made," he said. "So I hope we can reach that goal. We are not there at this moment."