WATCH: Bernie Sanders announces White House run

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has officially thrown his hat in the ring for the White House in 2016, and will hold an afternoon Capitol Hill press conference “to discuss his agenda for America.”

{mosads}Sanders launched his campaign early Thursday morning in a statement to supporters, excerpts of which were released in advance to the media. 

“It’s not just that, for 40 years, the middle class has been disappearing,” he said.  “It’s that 99% of all new income is going to the top 1%, and the grotesque level of wealth and income inequality today is worse than at any time since the late 1920s. The people at the top are grabbing all the new wealth and income for themselves, and the rest of America is being squeezed and left behind.”

Sanders will run as a Democrat, making him the first official challenger to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Despite facing long odds on becoming the party’s nominee, Sanders said earlier this month he wouldn’t run “unless I thought I could win.”

He also announced Thursday morning that he won’t use a super-PAC. 

“I’m not going to go around the country talking to millionaires,” he said. “Now I’m saving my time because they wouldn’t give me money anyhow and that’s fine.”