Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign is laying off hundreds of its workers after the Vermont senator lost four of the five primaries featured Tuesday.
Sanders told The New York Times that he's simply trimming away some extra bodies that are not needed at this point in the campaign's lifecycle.
"We want to win as many delegates as we can, so we do not need workers now in states around country," Sanders said. "We don't need people right now in Connecticut. That election is over. We don't need them in Maryland. So what we are going to do is allocate our resources to the 14 contests that remain, and that means that we are going to be cutting back on staff.
"It will be hundreds of staff members. We have had a very large staff, which was designed to deal with 50 states in this country; 40 of the states are now behind us. So we have had a great staff, great people."
Sanders won the Rhode Island primary Tuesday night but lost to Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, and Maryland.
The campaign's communications director Michael Briggs told Politico the downsizing is part of the plan as Sanders' push to the White House presses on — despite the fact that he trails Clinton in delegate votes, 2,141 to 1,321.
"We're 80 percent of the way through the caucuses and primaries and we make adjustments as we go along," Briggs said. "This is a process that we've done before of right-sizing the campaign as we move through the calendar."
Sanders told the Times he would rehire "every one of those great people who have helped us get this far" if he becomes the Democrat party's presidential nominee.
Sanders said the campaign will now throw many of its resources at the California primary, scheduled for June 7.
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