Bernie Sanders endorsed Joe Biden for the presidency on Monday, lending his support toward unifying the Democratic Party’s effort to beat Donald Trump in the November election.
“I’m asking every Democrat, I’m asking every Independent, I’m asking a lot of Republicans to come together in this campaign to support your candidacy, which I endorse,” the Vermont senator and former presidential candidate said in a live-streamed video with Biden. “It’s no great secret, Joe, that you and I have our differences, and we are not going to paper them over. That’s real. But I hope that these task forces will come together, utilizing the best minds and people in your campaign and in my campaign, to work out real solutions to these very, very important problems.”
Sanders suspended his campaign last Wednesday, telling his supporters in a video that he could not “in good conscience continue to mount a campaign that cannot win and which would interfere with the important work required of all of us in this difficult hour.”
Though his name would still remain on the ballot in states who have not yet held their primaries, the Vermont senator said that he would be supporting Biden in the race to defeat Trump.
Biden said that Sanders’ endorsement was a “big deal” to him.
“If I am the nominee, which it looks like now you just made me, I am going to need you, not just to win the campaign, but to govern,” Biden said to Sanders.