Clinton: DNC should authorize additional Democratic debate next week

The three major candidates are also scheduled to appear on the same stage on February 5 at a New Hampshire Democratic Party dinner.

But the politics were pretty clear: Sanders had to do something to counter the impression that Hillary Clinton has been avidly promoting – most overtly in the NBC News debate in SC on January 17 – that she was the best-equipped candidate to protect and build on Barack Obama’s legacy.

In an interview with NBC Nightly News’ Lester Holt, Sanders said if he comes in second place in Iowa, his campaign will move full steam ahead to the next three primaries on the calendar – New Hampshire, Nevada and SC.

He noted Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speaking fees during the last presidential debate in SC and during a stop in Mason City on Wednesday night, Sanders told supporters that Clinton was raising money at a Philadelphia investment firm while he was campaigning with Iowans.

A new poll from Monmouth University in New Jersey said Clinton is leading by five points, 47 percent to 42 percent. She also said she’s sticking with Sanders.

After the 45-minute meeting, Sanders said Obama has been “even-handed” in publicly staying neutral in the long drawn out campaign, even though US political analysts have long assumed the president favors Clinton’s nomination as the Democratic candidate.

White House officials say Obama’s comments were a as much a reflection of Obama’s high regard for Clinton, as any discomfort with Sanders. “We will win if the turnout is large”.

Clinton painted Sanders as being too radical, a flip-flopper on key issues including gun control, while she accused him of wanting to dismantle Obamacare, a charge the Vermont senator called “ridiculous”. “I love debates. I think they are a way to inform the American people of our positions and our differences”. Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver said the campaign reminded staffers it was inappropriate “and that they should not do it again”. The records indicate he is in “overall very good health”.

“You are in overall very good health and active in your professional work, and recreational lifestyle without limitation”, wrote Sanders’ longtime doctor, Brian Monahan, the attending physician of the U.S. Congress.

If Sanders takes the White House, he would be 75 upon inauguration and become the oldest president elected in US history, according to USA Today. “He is in excellent physical and mental condition and able to serve in any stressful and demanding executive setting including the Office of the President of the United States“, he said.