Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders’ policy goals are “not that different” former president Barack Obama has said in an apparent effort to close any lingering split in Democratic ranks as the presidential election looms.
Biden, Obama’s vice-president from 2009 to 2017, accepted the nomination to face Donald Trump at the Democratic convention last week. This week, the president will take the stage.
Obama was speaking to the New Yorker.
“If you look at Joe Biden’s goals and Bernie Sanders’s goals, they’re not that different, from a 40,000ft level,” Obama said.
“They both want to make sure everybody has healthcare. They want to make sure everybody can get a job that pays a living wage. They want to make sure every child gets a good education.”
For his part, Biden said he had quashed fears of an “ideological jihad” from Sanders.
The independent senator from Vermont, a self-described democratic socialist, pushed Hillary Clinton in 2016. In 2020 he made a strong early showing in the primaries before Biden surged to victory.
Sanders endorsed Biden and spoke at the convention but discontent lingers among progressives, not least given what they see as the relative sidelining of stars such as Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, the young congresswoman from New York, and Biden’s reluctance to fully embrace policies including Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.
Obama emphasized the need for pragmatism in the fight against Trump.
“A lot of times,” he said, “the issue has to do with ‘How do we go about that, and what are the coalitions we need?’ What I think the moment has done is to change some of those calculations, not because necessarily Joe’s changed but because circumstances have changed.”
Biden surged in the primary after winning South Carolina, a key test of support among African Americans, a foundational bloc in the party, in what was seen as a firm victory for centrists in the party.
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However, the New Yorker also quoted a “senior aide to Bernie Sanders” who said Biden had told the senator, in a call about an endorsement, he wanted “to be the most progressive president since FDR”.
Biden said he “had to be sure that Bernie was serious, that he wasn’t going to make this an ideological jihad”.
Discussing policy task forces including one on climate change, a panel chaired by Ocasio Cortez, Biden said: “I said, ‘Bernie, if you want these set up in order for me to insist that I be for Medicare for All … this is not where it’s going to go.’
“But I said, ‘I’m open, I hear you, I’m ready to listen.’ ”
In June, Sanders told the magazine: “I have a better relationship with Joe Biden than I had with Hillary Clinton.”
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