Sen. Bernard Sanders responded to Hillary Clinton’s lamenting his delayed endorsement in 2016 by saying he doesn’t want to “re-run” the last presidential election and that he campaigned vigorously for Mrs. Clinton against President Trump.

“I’m sorry that Hillary Clinton is re-running 2016…I could take out a letter from Hillary Clinton saying, thank you, Bernie, for working so hard to try to make me the president of the United States,” Mr. Sanders, Vermont Independent, said in an interview with “Iowa Press” that ran Sunday.

“I don’t want to re-run 2016,” said Mr. Sanders, a leading contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. “Right now our goal is to defeat Donald Trump. I think I am the strongest candidate to do that. If it turns out that I am not the Democratic nominee I will strongly support anybody else.”

Mrs. Clinton, the former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, recently told radio host Howard Stern that Mr. Sanders could have endorsed her more quickly the last time around.

“He hurt me. There is no doubt about it, [he] hurt me,” Mrs. Clinton said, noting that she was “disappointed.” “And I hope he doesn’t do it again to whoever gets the nomination. Once is enough. We have to join forces.”

But Mr. Sanders said he held dozens of rallies and worked hard to get Mrs. Clinton elected in 2016 after he didn’t become the Democrats’ nominee.

“Now, what I tried to do after she won the primary is to sit down with her staff, and we did, to create a Democratic platform that was as progressive as it could be and that ended up happening,” he said.

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