Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has casually conceded the race to rival Hillary Clinton.
When asked by host C-SPAN anchor Steve Scully if he planned on addressing the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia next month, Sanders replied: “It doesn’t appear that I’m going to be the nominee, so I’m not going to determine the scope of the convention.”
The admission comes after the Vermont senator—who had previously vowed to stay in the race through the convention, despite having no plausible path to victory—met with Clinton to reportedly discuss strategy for beating presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
“We are negotiating almost every day with the Clinton people and we want secretary Clinton to stake out the strongest positions she can on campaign finance reform, on health care, on education—especially higher education—on the economy, on the minimum wage,” he told Scully.
He also spoke frankly, arguably for the first time in months, about the special prejudices faced by the first major-party female candidate in US history: “She has clearly had to fight her way through a lot of sexism and unfair attacks over the years—which are based on sexism.”
“But we have disagreements,” he added. “She is clearly an establishment Democrat.”
Sanders also informed Scully that he was not, in fact, being vetted as a potential vice presidential pick for Clinton’s general-election run. “It would be a terrible mistake for her to pick a candidate who is backed by Wall Street,” he advised, perhaps subtly addressing rumors that Clinton’s Wall Street backers have expressed their opposition to adding progressive Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren to the ticket.