After White House meeting, Sanders says Obama is not taking sides

Sanders did not answer questions about the issue after a meeting Wednesday with President Barack Obama at the White House.

Speaking at a Thursday evening rally in Burlington, Iowa, Sanders cast himself as a legislator steeped in principle, pointing to his opposition to the Iraq war, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, the Keystone pipeline and the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton, who later said he regretted the decision.

“No, of course not”, Sanders said when asked if he asked for Obama’s endorsement.

At Hillary Clinton’s campaign offices all across Iowa, staffers are using rival Bernie Sanders’s own words as new motivation in the four days left until the caucuses.

“We have another one shortly after New Hampshire on the calendar, and I’ve said we should start looking for dates to get one scheduled”.

Where they disagree, Clinton said, was that only she would do more to regulate the “shadow banking” industry she said was in part responsible for the 2008 financial crisis, citing the collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers and bailout of the insurance giant AIG. If Secretary Clinton wants more debates that’s great.

On the whole, Sanders said the Democratic party needs to do a better job reaching out to voters outside of the early primary states, as well as younger and working class voters. I think, you know, voters are pretty sophisticated.

“I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal emails instead of two”, she said.

Sanders is counting on more enthusiasm from his youthful supporters.

On health care, where Sanders has proposed a single-payer system and Clinton has said Democrats should work to protect and improve the Affordable Care Act, Clinton said, “We both want universal coverage”.

“What the President has tried to do, what Vice President Biden has tried to do, is to be as even-handed as they can be”. “I think Hillary came in with the both privilege-and burden-of being perceived as the front-runner”.

“We have consistently worked with our campaigns to ensure a schedule that is robust and that allows them to engage with voters in a variety of ways, whether through debates, forums, town halls, but also leaving them the flexibility to attend county fairs and living room conversations in states like Iowa and New Hampshire where direct voter contact matters so much”, she said.

In Iowa, which holds the first nominating contest of the 2016 race on Monday, Sanders and Clinton are running in a dead heat, polls show.

Joyce Dittmer, 75, of Waukee, Iowa, also praised Sanders’ proposals but said “he won’t get all that stuff through” Congress. “And I think she has to be held accountable for that”. The DNC refused to sanction the Union Leader/MSNBC debate, which would take place February 4, and it has said candidates participating in unsanctioned debates would forfeit their ability to be in any of the remaining debates.

The Clinton campaign did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment about whether it would agree to Sanders’ terms. Adding another debate before New Hampshire’s February 9 primary would give her a large television audience that might help her reach undecided voters.