Clinton: Race Against Sanders Is Over and Trump Is Not Qualified to Be President

As far as Hillary Clinton is concerned, the Democratic race for president is over.

During an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Thursday, the former secretary of state said there is “no way” that she will not be the 2016 Democratic nominee, and urged rival Bernie Sanders to “do his part to unify” the Democratic Party in order to defeat presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.

“I will be the nominee for my party, Chris,” the Democratic front-runner told Cuomo in an interview from Park Ridge, Illinois. “That is already done, in effect. There’s no way that I won’t be.”

And Sanders, Clinton added, “has to do his part to unify.”

“He said the other day that he’ll do everything possible to defeat Donald Trump. He said he’d work seven days a week. I take him at his word,” Clinton said. “I think the threat that Donald Trump poses is so dramatic to our country, to our democracy and our economy that I certainly expect Sen. Sanders to do what he said he would.”

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Asked whether she would consider Sanders as her potential running mate, Clinton said that was a discussion for the future and added, “What brings us together is Donald Trump.”

Clinton also said that, despite increasing outrage – and even reported violence – from Sanders supporters who believe the system is rigged against the Vermont senator, she has “every confidence” the Democratic party will eventually unify.

“That doesn’t mean we won’t have some vigorous discussion and debate about issues, about the platform, about all of the process of a convention,” she said. “I welcome that. I think that’s healthy. I think bringing people into the party giving them a voice at the end is going to help us in the fall. I think as I said I will certainly do my part and more to reach out and bring in Sen. Sanders’ supporters and I have every reason to expect he’ll do the same.”

Hillary Clinton Says Donald Trump Is Not Qualified to Be President

The focus now, Clinton said, should be on taking down Trump, who she believes is “not qualified” to be the president.

“I think in this past week – whether attacking Great Britain, praising the leader of North Korea, a despotic dictator who has nuclear weapons, whether it is saying, ‘Pull out of NATO, let other countries have nuclear weapons’ – the kinds of positions he is stating and the consequences of those positions, and even the consequences of his statements, are not just offensive to people, they are potentially dangerous.”

Clinton also criticized Trump in a letter to supporters Thursday, saying, “In the United States, we ask our presidents to show the world what it means to be American. In Barack Obama, we’ve had a president who has shown us at our very best, whether he’s learning from the kids at the White House science fair or making passionate arguments to foreign leaders about American ideals like freedom and equality.”

“I can’t exactly see Donald Trump doing any of those things – can you?”

And Clinton’s campaign chief, John Podesta, released a statement Wednesday warning against the dangers of a Trump presidency.

“In this week alone, Donald Trump has jeopardized relations with a close ally before setting foot overseas; talked about building a relationship with a reckless dictator; called two diverse American cities more dangerous than war zones like Iraq; and released a list of suggested Supreme Court nominees that includes no people of color, but does include a judge who upheld a law requiring doctors to use scare tactics to impede reproductive rights and another judge who equated homosexual sex to ‘bestiality,’ pedophilia’ and ‘necrophilia.’ ”

“And it’s only Wednesday. At this point, it’s hard to keep up with myriad reasons Trump should not be president, but the divisive policies and nominees, reckless and ununiformed foreign policy positions and offensive views of Americans are just a few. Any one of these things would be troubling. All of them together, in just a few days, is further proof that Donald Trump is a risk we can’t afford.”