President Biden's address to the nation caps a remarkable three and a half days, which have seen the Democratic Party fall in line behind Vice President Harris at warps speed. Joining me tonight, Vermont independent Senator and former Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, who has been taking a somewhat more measured approach. Senator Sanders, it's great to have you here tonight. You just heard President Biden delivering that address, and at the end of it, saying that he has made his pick in endorsing Vice President Harris to succeed him. You have yet to endorse her. Are you prepared to do so tonight?

I'm going to work as hard as I can to see that Donald Trump, the most dangerous President in American history, is defeated and that Kamala Harris is, in fact, the next President of the United States. But before I make a formal announcement, I just want to make certain that the vice President is going to be campaigning on issues that the working class of this country, a working class that has has long been forgotten, needs to hear. I want to just make sure that the vice president will be working with President Biden, with me and others, to demand that the wealthiest people in this country start paying their fair share of taxes, that when we have 50% of our elderly people living on 30,000 a year or less, that we expand Social Security benefits by lifting the cap on taxable income. So the rich start their fair share. I want to hear her be strong in contrasting herself with Trump and making it clear that we have got to save this planet from climate change, that we're pro-union, make it easier for workers to join union. We raise the minimum wage to a living wage, that we deal with the fact that we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country in Europe.

We got to start focusing on issues that working class people desperately need to hear when 60% of of Americans will live in paycheck to paycheck, and too many elderly people, too many kids are living in poverty.

Well, and obviously, she's still looking for a governing partner at this time. We've seen the list of candidates that they are vetting right now. A lot of them are moderate members of the Democratic Party. I wonder if when you look at that list, you'd like to see her maybe cast a wider net to include someone who has championed some of the same issues that you yourself do.

Well, I would hope there's a lot of speculation as to who might be her running mate, but I certainly would like to see somebody who has a history of standing up to the oligarchs who have so much power in this country, who is going to fight for campaign finance reform so the big money doesn't dominate both political parties. Yeah, I certainly would like to see that person be the vice presidential candidate.

I have to ask you about something that Donald Trump said at a rally tonight when he was attacking Vice President Harris. He said she is, quote, more liberal than Bernie Sanders. Is that how you would put it?

Probably not. It is just possible for the 83,000 time that Trump is lying. No, I don't think that is the case. I think that the vice president had a very strong record in the US Senate, a strong record working with President Biden in the administration. But no, I don't quite think that her record is where mine is in terms of being progressive.

Do you think you'll eventually come around to endorsing her? I mean, are you leaning that way whenever you have these conversations?

Caitlin, I am going to do everything I can to make sure that she wins. But I just want to hope that in the next few days and weeks, We can make sure that we put together a campaign that focuses on the needs of working class. Make no mistake about it, I'm with her. I'm going to do everything that I can, that the progressive movement can, to make sure that where she is the next President.

Senator Sanders, you're on Capitol Hill right now. Obviously, earlier, Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed Congress. You did not attend that speech. You said yesterday it was the first time that you believed a war criminal, as you put it, had been invited to address the US Congress. In that speech, he referenced the protesters who were outside the Capitol. There were thousands of them as Tehran's useful idiots. What was your takeaway from what you heard from Prime Minister Netanyahu?

My takeaway is that he came a very long distance Jerusalem to Washington, DC, to give a campaign speech for the folks back in Israel. This is a guy who some 70% of the people in Israel, in the last poll that was taken, want to resign. So So he came here and he got a good reception from the Republicans. But it's not just me who thinks he is a war criminal. This is what the International Criminal Court has determined. They have determined what I believe to be true, that his policies are resulting in the starvation, the starvation of tens and tens of thousands of children and Palestinians. And that is a war crime. And he, along with Simwa, the leader of Hamas, has been charged with being war criminals. And in my view, they both are. Simwa started this war with this Hamas terrorist group, but Netanyahu has waged total war destroying the housing, destroying the infrastructure, destroying the health care system. They have bombed every one of the 12 universities in Gaza, and now we're looking at tens and tens of thousands of children facing starvation. He lied. He He died when he said, Oh, we are trying to get food in.

We are trying to act in a decent way. Every humanitarian organization working in Gaza indicates that Israel is making it difficult, impossible for food to get into starving people. That is a war crime.

Senator Bernie Sanders, thank you for your time tonight.

Thank you.

Jake, back to you.

Thanks, Caitlin. I want to show you a new photograph just posted on social media. It's President Biden with a microphone talking to White House staffers in the Rose Garden. The staffers had, of course, just watched the boss bring his long career in politics, though not his presidency to a close. Tonight, back with our panel, Dana, it sounds like Senator Sanders is on board, but just wants to make sure he gets on to the vice president's schedule at some point in the next few days.

It's a few things he wants to talk to her about. But honestly, he doesn't maybe need to endorse her because telling the world that she is not as liberal as he is is maybe the best campaign statement that he could give to her right now when she is, of course, she has to shore up her base, but she really also needs to appeal to independents and others who are going to get beyond that.

Yeah. That is going to be a challenge for her to get the Bernie Sanders progressives on board while also expanding the caricature being painted of her as an out-of-touch San Francisco liberal and reaching out to get the collar counties outside Philly and on and on.

Again, there is a race now to define the vice president for the American people out there. There are a lot of Democrats who are breathing a sigh of relief and viewing the Trump campaign as rather flat-footed. The Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, Dave McCormick, put up an ad that cast Kamala Harris as a left or Bernie Sanders, or at least as left as Bernie Sanders liberal. The Trump campaign has not put any money on television yet. This is one of the challenges. In the 2020 campaign, when she was running to the left of Joe Biden to get the nomination, she came around to a number of liberal positions that she had never spoken out in favor of the Senate. Everybody in that campaign was moving. There are a lot of Democrats saying, Why didn't the Trump campaign drop a bunch of millions of dollars, even if it was crudely produced? Just put her out there, boom. So that's part of the race. Senator Sanders, he's done this before. He's smart. He knows what he's doing here. You're right. He wants to get on her schedule. He wants to make sure that she understands. He has a great fundraising list.

He has a great organizational list. He has a ton of power in places where she could use the help. There are a lot of Democrats out there who love Joe Biden for kicking Trump out of the White House, but have become demoralized and despondent even. There was despair before Sunday afternoon. And does he have the vigor to do this? We can't let Trump come back. The small donor money is the best data point right now. As I said, wait a week or two for the polls. The small donor rush to Kamala Harris is the best data point right now that she has an opportunity. Again, a smart Democrat I talked to you yesterday, said, Sunday morning, we had about a 5% chance of winning. Now we have about a 40% chance of winning. Democrats shouldn't rush to Vegas and bet the House, but they're in play now. That's the excitement. They think, Okay, we have a chance.

And The biggest saving grace, honestly, for Kamala Harris, maybe the fact that she did manage to avoid a divisive Democratic primary where she would have been put in uncomfortable situation after uncomfortable situation as she would have to have decided just how progressive of what she going to be, because I think that's really where we saw her struggle when she ran for President, and even before that. I interviewed her back in 2018, and she told me that she thought that they should start from scratch. When I asked her if she wanted to abolish ICE, she pretty quickly cleaned that back up, and now that's something that's coming back into this campaign, she'd have to deal with any of that. Instead, she has an opportunity to meet with Bernie Sanders. You're talking about weakness among white working class men in particular. I actually covered Bernie Sanders day in and day out on the 2016 Trail. A lot of the people I talked to at those rallies were white working class men, many of whom were looking at Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.

Because he fights for them. It's not so much the specifics of the issues. They think he fights for them. They might disagree with him on some things issues-wise, but he shows up and he fights for them. Sherrod to win a Senate seating Ohio. A great personal brand. Can you overcome the politics of the moment? I love watching politicians who might not match up on the issues with some of their key voters, but those voters say, I know he's for me. That was Joe Biden's gift with some of those blue-collar workers.