Bernie Sanders doesn't tell Stephen Colbert he's not running in 2020

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/The Late Show)

Before Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) officially won his Democratic nomination in Vermont on Tuesday, he sat down with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show. Colbert asked why he wasn't in Vermont — Sanders said he'd voted that morning — and what democratic socialism means for Sanders and his allies. Sanders said it meant a $15-an-hour minimum wage, a national right to health care, tuition-free public college, and clean energy.

"Other people have espoused those ideas without calling themselves socialists," Colbert noted. The Democratic Party has been "socialist-curious" since the New Deal, he added, so why adopt "socialist," a label "freighted with so much negativity"? Sanders said his ideas are now "mainstream" and broadly popular, "and I think also people, in their gut, understand that we're living in a very strange moment in American history, above and beyond Donald Trump — which is very strange." Colbert asked what could be stranger than Trump, and Sanders said the unbelievably voracious "greed of the people on top," America's yawning wealth inequality, and the limitless dark money in politics.

Colbert brought up the 2020 election, noting that a betting site has Sanders tied with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) as the likely Democratic presidential nominee. "You want to lay a bet on who gets to face Donald Trump in 2020?" he asked Sanders, who said absolutely not. So Colbert asked if Sanders would "announce to the people here that you are not running in 2020," and Sanders said "no" to that, too. He added that he's focusing on ending the GOP's grip on power in Washington this year, and "it is too early to be talking about 2020." Watch below. Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.