WASHINGTON — Testifying to Hillary Clinton’s grit and experience, President Barack Obama endorsed his former secretary of state’s bid to succeed him on Thursday and urged Democrats to line up behind her. It was all part of a carefully orchestrated pressure campaign aimed at easing Clinton rival Bernie Sanders toward the exit and turning fully to the fight against Republican Donald Trump.
WASHINGTON — Testifying to Hillary Clinton’s grit and experience, President Barack Obama endorsed his former secretary of state’s bid to succeed him on Thursday and urged Democrats to line up behind her. It was all part of a carefully orchestrated pressure campaign aimed at easing Clinton rival Bernie Sanders toward the exit and turning fully to the fight against Republican Donald Trump.
Obama’s long-expected endorsement, delivered via an online video, included a forceful call for unity and for “embracing” Sanders’ economic message, which has fired up much of the liberal wing of his party. Obama sought to reassure Democrats that Clinton shares their values and is ready for the job.
“Look, I know how hard this job can be. That’s why I know Hillary will be so good at it,” Obama said. “I have seen her judgment. I have seen her toughness. I’ve seen her commitment to our values.”
Obama’s testimonial came less than an hour after the president met privately with Sanders at the White House to discuss the future of the senator’s “political revolution” — one that will not include him taking up residence at the White House. Sanders emerged from the meeting subdued and indicated he had gotten the message.
Although he stopped short of endorsing Clinton, the Vermont senator told reporters he planned to press for his “issues” — rather than victory — at the party’s July convention and would meet with Clinton “in the near future” to discuss ways to defeat Trump.
At an evening campaign rally at Washington’s RFK Stadium, Sanders made no mention of Clinton, of trying to win over the party insiders known as superdelegates or of pressing his case at next month’s Democratic National Convention.
He barely mentioned next Tuesday’s primary election in the city, the last on the Democratic primary calendar.
“It would be extraordinary if the people of Washington, our nation’s capital, stood up and told the world that they are ready to lead this country into a political revolution,” Sander said in the final sentence of an hour-long address.
In another sign of Democratic unification, Sen. Elizabeth Warren made plans to endorse Clinton. The Massachusetts senator had been the only holdout among the Senate’s Democratic women, and her endorsement would send a signal to Sanders’ progressive supporters that it’s time to unite around the party’s presumptive nominee.
Warren’s endorsement was to come Thursday evening in an appearance on MSNBC, according to two Senate officials who demanded anonymity to confirm the news ahead of time.
Clinton declared victory over Sanders on Tuesday, having captured the number of delegates needed to become the first female nominee from a major party. Her late and somewhat sputtering victory set off a fresh round of private phone calls and back-channel negotiations, all aimed at sussing out Sanders’ demands, easing him out of the race without angering his die-hard supporters and putting the full-court press on Trump.
Obama’s endorsement and Sanders’ visit were the public culmination of that work.