Sanders Campaign Press Release - Big Texas Rally for Sanders as Super Tuesday Nears

AUSTIN, Texas – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders drew 10,100 supporters to a Saturday morning rally where he told the crowd he is in the best position to defeat Republican front-runner Donald Trump and challenged Hillary Clinton to release transcripts of secret speeches she gave to Wall Street bankers and other special interests.

At the outdoor rally at a raceway under a big blue Texas sky, Sanders told the crowd that he looks forward to taking on Trump in the general election this fall.

"We will defeat Trump," Sanders declared because he thinks "wages are too high" and "climate change is a hoax" and because "the American people do not want a president who insults Mexicans, Muslims, women, African-Americans, veterans and basically anyone who isn't just like him," Sanders said.

"We will win because togetherness trumps divisiveness, community trumps selfishness and love trumps hate," the senator added.

Turning to his Democratic Party rival, Sanders urged Clinton to release the transcripts of nearly 100 speeches for which she was paid $21.7 million after she stepped down as secretary of state but before formally launching her campaign for the White House. Under pressure to reveal what she said to the power-brokers behind closed doors, Clinton has said for weeks that she was thinking about it. "Why don't you make those transcripts public?" Sanders asked.

The rally ended with a performance of This Land is Your Land, a Sanders rally hallmark, sung by Amy Nelson and Cathy Guthrie, the daughters of Woody Guthrie, the songwriter, and Willie Nelson.

Sanders was headed from Austin to rallies in Dallas and Rochester, Minnesota. The stops are part of an expanding campaign map focused on contests in 11 states holding primaries or caucuses next Tuesday.

"On Super Tuesday, the state with the most delegates is the great state of Texas," Sanders told the Austin rally. The biggest prize yet in the primary process, Texas Democrats will elect 222 delegates. Altogether, 865 pledged delegates are at stake in Democratic Party contests on Tuesday.

As of Saturday morning, Sanders and Hillary Clinton were virtually tied in delegates pledged to support them at this summer's Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. She had won 52 delegates to 51 for Sanders in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

Before going home to vote in Vermont on Super Tuesday, Sanders' schedule also includes Sunday stops in Oklahoma and Colorado and Monday rallies in Minnesota and Massachusetts.

In a big boost, Sanders late on Friday won the endorsement of Robert B. Reich, who served in President Bill Clinton's cabinet as the U.S. Department of Labor secretary and later ran for governor of Massachusetts. In a statement posted on Facebook, Reich said that Sanders' political revolution "is the only means by which we can get the nation back from the moneyed interests that now control so much of our economy and democracy."