Washington, DC, Democratic Primary Live Updates: Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton To Meet After Last Voters Cast Their Ballots

UPDATE 12:19 a.m. EDT: After a nearly two-hour-long meeting at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C, both Democratic presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and rival Bernie Sanders released “positive” statements saying they have agreed to work together to defeat Donald Trump.

“The two discussed a variety of progressive issues where they share common goals like raising wages for working families, eliminating undisclosed money in politics and reducing the cost of college for students and their families,” the NBC quoted a Clinton official echoing Sanders’s statement. The two sat down for the meeting just as Clinton was declared the winner of the final primary in the Democratic Party's presidential nominating process.

UPDATE: 9:50 p.m. EDT -- The expected face-to-face meeting between Hillary Clinton and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders got underway Tuesday evening at a Washington, D.C., hotel, just around the time news organizations were reporting Clinton's victory in the district's Democratic presidential primary, ABC News reported.

Whether details from the meeting, including Sanders' decision on whether to continue with his campaign, were to be made public Tuesday evening remained to be seen.

UPDATE: 9 p.m. EDT -- Hillary Clinton has won Tuesday's Democratic primary in the District of Columbia, the final primary of the presidential campaign, the New York Times reported.

The outcome had little impact on the race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, because Clinton has already accumulated more than the required number of delegates to become the party's nominee.

But the vote increased the pressure on U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders to end his campaign, the Times reported. Sanders has spoken of seeking a contested convention when Democrats gather in Philadelphia, July 25-28.

UPDATE: 4:15 p.m. EDT — In a news conference in front of his Washington, D.C., campaign office, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders called Tuesday for a "fundamental transformation" of the Democratic Party. He also proposed several specific changes he would like to see at the party's convention, July 25-28 in Philadelphia.

“We need a party which is prepared to stand up for the disappearing middle class, for the 47 million people in this country who are living in poverty and take on the greed of the powerful special interests that are doing so much harm to this country who have so much power over the political and economic life of our country,” Sanders said during the news conference.

Among the policy priorities he listed were a change in leadership for the Democratic National Committee, the elimination of superdelegates, same day registration for voting and open primaries.

UPDATE: 2:15 p.m. EDT — U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont will address supporters Thursday night via a live, online video, his campaign said Tuesday. The talk will take place at 8:30 p.m. EDT and will be focused on "what's next for our campaign," Sanders said in an email message to supporters.

The message featured the subject line "The political revolution continues" and followed the theme Sanders has emphasized in recent days of pushing his progressive message beyond the Democratic primary contest, which is nearly over. Now that Hillary Clinton is the party's presumptive nominee, many have wondered when Sanders will drop out of the race, but it was unclear whether Thursday night's address would be a concession from Sanders or simply another chance to rally his fans ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in late July.

UPDATE: 1:20 p.m. EDT — Bernie Sanders is dividing some of his attention between the Washington, D.C., primary on Tuesday and a congressional race in Nevada that will test his clout. Voters in Nevada are casting their ballots in several races, and one of those features Lucy Flores, who is running to represent Nevada's 4th Congressional District.

Flores is one of the few congressional candidates who Sanders has backed. Earlier this year, he sent out fundraising emails for her and he tweeted about her race on Tuesday.

The other Democrats running against Flores have big support as well. Nevada State Senate Minority Whip Ruben Kihuen has been endorsed by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and former President Bill Clinton, and Susie Lee, an education leader, was endorsed by Emily's List, the Democratic group that helps elect women who support abortion rights.

While Sanders will not likely win the Democratic nomination for himself, he's hoping his enthusiastic supporters will elect other progressive politicians around the country.

UPDATE: 11:59 a.m. EDT — Russian government hackers broke into the Democratic National Committee's computer network and accessed the party's database of opposition research about presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, the Washington Post reported Tuesday. The security breach was quite extensive, allowing the hackers to see all email and chat data, DNC officials said.

Officials told the Washington Post that hackers had access to the DNC network for a year, but were expelled over the weekend. Russian spies also targeted the networks of Hillary Clinton and Trump, as well as some Republican politicial action committees.

“The security of our system is critical to our operation and to the confidence of the campaigns and state parties we work with,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chairwoman, said in a statement. “When we discovered the intrusion, we treated this like the serious incident it is and reached out to CrowdStrike immediately. Our team moved as quickly as possible to kick out the intruders and secure our network.”

UPDATE: 11:06 a.m. EDT — Donald Trump’s renewed call to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S. hasn’t exactly gotten a warm greeting by many, including some of the top officials in the Republican Party. On Tuesday, the scrutiny of Trump’s proposal was ramped up when Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson called the plan “overly simplistic” and “counterproductive,” the Hill reported.

While being interviewed on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Johnson -- a Democrat appointed by President Barack Obama – dismissed Trump’s call as being against everything that the U.S. stands for.

“Overly simplistic suggestions that we ban people from entering this country based on religion, or ban people from an entire region of the world, is counterproductive," Johnson said.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, the highest ranking Republican, offered similar sentiments Tuesday, saying Trump's proposal isn't a good idea for multiple reasons, CNBC reported.

"I do not think a Muslim ban is in our country's interests, I do not think it is reflective of our principles, not just as a party but as a country," Ryan said Tuesday during a press conference, "And I think the smarter way to go in all respects is to have a security test, and not a religious test."

Trump’s call for banning all Muslims from entering the U.S. first came late last year following the Islamic State terror attacks in Paris. He reiterated his proposal Monday, one day after a gunman who pledged allegiance to the terror group also known as ISIS staged a deadly shooting rampage at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

UPDATE: 10:17 a.m. EDT — While Democrats are wrapping up their primaries with the final one in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump continues to draw ire from many directions. After the real estate mogul revoked press credentials for the Washington Post late Monday because he was upset with the newspaper's coverage of his campaign, the White House Correspondents' Association released a statement Tuesday condemning Trump's actions.

"The White House Correspondents' Association stands with the Washington Post and numerous other news outlets that Donald Trump has arbitrarily banned from his campaign events," Carol Lee, the association's president, said in a statement. "Any nominee for the highest office in the country must respect the role of a free and adversarial press, not disown the principles of the First Amendment just because he or she does not like the tone or content of their coverage."

The Washington Post joins a list of at least a dozen other news organizations that have been banned from Trump campaign events over the course of the 2016 election cycle. While Trump has sometimes called out publications' unfavorable coverage specifically — as he did with the Washington Post — his campaign has rarely acknowledged the reasoning behind pulling press credentials.

UPDATE: 10:02 a.m. EDT — As voters in D.C. go to the polls on Tuesday, Bernie Sanders will meet with Senate Democrats ahead of his talk with Hillary Clinton later on primary night, USA Today reported. Last week, the Vermont sentator met with Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and Sen. Chuck Schumer, the incoming Democratic Senate leader.

Original story:

Voters in the nation’s capital were casting their ballots Tuesday in the final Democratic presidential primary of the season, even though the results are largely meaningless.

Hillary Clinton became the presumptive Democratic nominee last week, and although Bernie Sanders promised to fight on until the party’s convention in late July, his campaign is clearly near at an end. The Associated Press announced Clinton’s support from superdelegates — party leaders who can support any candidate — gave her the nomination the night before California, New Jersey and other states cast their votes, but the former secretary of state waited until results came in to claim her victory.

Since then, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have endorsed Clinton, confirming the choice the primary voters made. Sanders’ campaign had insisted they would ask superdelegates to switch their support from Clinton to the Vermont senator, but given Clinton’s overwhelming lead and her connections in the party, this is extremely unlikely.

Clinton currently holds a 375-delegate lead over Sanders and has received millions more votes than him. The D.C. primary will offer up 20 pledged delegates, and Clinton has long been favored there, so the vote will not tip the scales in either direction.

In more recent days, Sanders has focused on appealing to D.C. Democrats and reminding them not to ignore the final primary of the year. He called for statehood for the District of Columbia over the weekend, and did not even mention Clinton at his rally in D.C. last week. Instead, his rhetoric has been focused on moving the party forward and pushing his agenda.

Sanders is set to meet with Clinton on Tuesday night, where he said he hopes to discuss priorities such as the middle class, healthcare, college affordability and climate change. “After we have that kind of discussion and after we can determine whether or not we are going to have a strong and progressive platform, I will be able to make other decisions,” Sanders told NBC’s Chuck Todd.

While D.C. voters might not have much of a say in their party’s presidential choice this year, the candidates are still hoping this will be one last show of enthusiasm as they work to unite the party on Tuesday and going forward.