Trump must not become US President, He is A ‘disaster’ – Sanders

US Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders says Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, will be a “disaster” for the country.

“Hillary Clinton and I disagree on a whole lot of issues and people at the convention are going to disagree, but one thing we’re all united on, Trump would be a disaster for this country. He must not become president,” Sanders told RT America, a Russian news channel, on Monday.

Trump’s campaign has been marked by controversial statements, including with disparaging remarks about Mexican immigrants and Muslims.

In December, Trump called for a “total and complete” ban on Muslims entering the United States. The proposal triggered widespread criticism and condemnation in the US and around the world.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Sanders reiterated that he would be the strongest candidate for the Democratic Party to defeat Trump in a general election, and called on superdelegates, who have pledged to Clinton, to reconsider their positions.

“I ask those superdelegates, including many of them who came on board Clinton’s campaign before I was even on the race. Before the first ballot was cast, to do some hard thinking. Take a look at the polls, take a look at the nature of the campaigns,” he said.

“And I think if you do that, you’ll find that the energy, the enthusiasm, the voter turnout will be with us. We are the strongest campaign to defeat Hillary Clinton — to defeat Donald Trump, and hopefully Hillary Clinton as well here, and if that’s the case, I would hope they support us,” the senator from Vermont added.

Sanders is under pressure to end his campaign, with Democratic Party leaders warning that his continued presence in the race is undermining efforts to beat Trump.

Sanders has frequently rejected the idea of dropping out, often telling the thousands of supporters who attend his rallies that he still has a narrow path to the presidential nomination. Nonetheless, the Clinton campaign insists that Sanders has no pathway toward victory now.

Clinton has won a total of about 1,716 pledged delegates, ahead of Sanders with 1,433.

With the addition of the so-called superdelegates — party leaders who can support any candidate — Clinton’s delegate count grows to 2,240 and Sanders’s to 1,473.

At least 2,383 delegates are needed to win the Democratic nomination.

About half of US voters are “scared” that Trump might be elected as the US president while more than third are afraid about Clinton becoming president.

Nearly half of respondents, 47 percent, said they were “scared” now that Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee, while 26 percent said they were “hopeful,” according to an NBC News/Survey Monkey poll of voters released last week.

The poll found that 21 percent said they were angry, 14 percent said they were excited and 16 percent were surprised.

More people are scared than hopeful about Clinton becoming president as well. Thirty-five percent reported being “scared” if Clinton were to win the Democratic nomination, while 29 percent would be hopeful, 22 percent would be angry, 16 percent would be excited and 7 percent would be surprised.

Clinton leads Trump by just 5 points, 49 to 44 percent, in a hypothetical general election match-up. Sanders, who has vowed to fight until the party’s national convention in July, leads Trump by 13 points, 53 to 40 percent.

Polls show that both Trump and Clinton are more unpopular with voters than the candidates in any of the past 10 White House matchups, going back four decades.