Hoyer sees no philosophical divide between Clinton, House Dems

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that there’s almost no philosophical divide between Hillary Clinton and House Democrats ahead of a planned meeting.

{mosads}The minority whip said the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee will have little trouble uniting the party ahead of November, suggesting the discord between Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) after an animated primary has been overblown.

“There’s not much of bridge here that’s necessary to be built,” Hoyer said during a briefing with reporters in the Capitol.

Clinton will huddle with the Democratic Caucus on Wednesday during their weekly meeting in the Capitol, as party leaders shift away from the primary race and seek to unite members of all stripes heading into the general election against Donald Trump, the likely GOP contender.

Amid that process, there’s been some concern among party strategists that significant numbers of Sanders’s supporters –– distrustful of Clinton on issues like trade, Wall Street and foreign policy –– would not turn out to vote if she’s at the top of the ticket.

Clinton has won the support of a vast majority of Democrats on Capitol Hill, but a handful of liberal members bucked the front-runner to back Sanders. That list includes Reps. Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.), Keith Ellison (Minn.), Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii), Alan Grayson (Fla.), Marcy Kaptur (Ohio), Rick Nolan (Minn.) and Peter Welch (Vt.) –– at least some of whom are likely to attend Wednesday’s meeting with Clinton.

But Hoyer downplayed any chance of fireworks at the gathering, saying the candidates are near-identical on the issues and suggesting any differences are more in tone and tactics –– and therefore easy to overcome.

“I don’t think his ideas are that much different [from Clinton’s],” Hoyer said of Sanders. “They may not have agreement on the ways and means to get there, or how fast to get there, or how much you can get done politically in a short period of time. But I don’t think there’s much of a philosophical bridge that needs to be built.”

Hoyer said the Democrats also have an unlikely ally as they seek to unify in the form of Trump, someone he characterized as “totally unqualified” to fill the White House “by personality, by experience, by knowledge and by temperament.”

“I don’t think Sanders could have made it more clear that his principle intent over the next four months, five months, is to ensure that Donald Trump does not become president of the United States. Because … he is totally unqualified … and I think he shows that on a regular basis –– not to mention his incivility to almost everybody with whom he deals,” Hoyer said.

“Trump continues to do poorly,” he added, referring to recent polls, “and I don’t think he can correct that because that’s what he is.”

Hoyer emphasized the need for “inclusion” and “outreach” between Clinton and Sander’s supporters following a long a hard-fought primary. But, he said, “I think Mrs. Clinton is doing that.”

“Anytime you have a contest, you know, feelings get animated and they need to be resolved and coordinate at the end,” he said. “And I think that will happen.”

There are already clear signs that Democrats are unifying behind Clinton.

Last week, Grijalva, the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the first congressional Democrat to endorse Sanders, announced he was jumping to Clinton’s side.

“With voting completed in the final Democratic Primary, it is now time for the Democratic Party to unify,” Grijalva said. “For all of us who supported Bernie from the beginning, whether we considered ourselves progressives or independents or just Americans tired of being on the outside looking in, the most important thing now is to beat Donald Trump in November.”