An internal “End Game” memo left in a Los Angeles hotel restaurant details extraordinary demands considered by the Sanders campaign ahead of the Democrats’ unity event.

PHILADELPHIA — The Bernie Sanders campaign considered demanding a private plane staffed and funded by the Democratic National Committee as part of negotiations with Hillary Clinton heading into this week’s convention, according to a Sanders memo obtained by BuzzFeed News.


The plane was to be used “for a series of fall rallies in battleground states,” according to the “Bernie 2016” memo, which was drafted in the days before Sanders’ sound defeat in the June 7 California primary, the contest that effectively ended his insurgent bid.


“This plane would be paid for by the DNC,” it reads.

The document reveals a campaign in its final days, considering whether to fight on with a “divisive critique” of Clinton, yet attuned to diminished influence inside the party.


Aides believed a tour of the battleground states would help keep Sanders center stage. The memo, titled “End Game,” also suggests that the Vermont senator’s campaign for Senate Democrats to “help deliver a majority and take credit for it” — one of several references throughout the four-page document showing the extent to which aides remained aware of opportunities to take “credit” amid decreasing “leverage.”