President Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton to succeed him in the White House on Thursday, just a few short hours after Obama met with Bernie Sanders.
“I’m with her; I’m fired up and I cannot wait to get out there and campaign for Hillary,” Obama said in video endorsement released Thursday afternoon.
“I want to congratulate Hillary Clinton for making history as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States,” he said. “I know how hard this job can be. That’s why I know Hillary will be so good at it.”
“In fact, I don’t think there’s ever been someone so qualified to hold his office,” he added.
The Obama endorsement was clearly in the works long before Thursday’s meeting with Sanders. Obama referenced meeting with Sanders “this week” instead of earlier today, and the video included a lengthy montage of clips of Obama and Clinton together.
Clinton’s campaign tweeted out the endorsement shortly after it was reported.
“President Obama endorses Hillary: ‘I don’t think there’s ever been someone so qualified to hold this office.'”
President Obama endorses Hillary: “I don’t think there’s ever been someone so qualified to hold this office.” https://t.co/KetvKoa853
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 9, 2016
After Obama’s meeting with Sanders, the Independent senator from Vermont did not drop out of the race. But he was clear that his goal now is to fight for his campaign issues at the national convention rather than seek to thwart Clinton, who secured enough delegates in Tuesday’s primaries to become the first female presidential candidate.
Obama praised Sanders in his video message, crediting him with bringing in new voters.
Obama said Sanders ran “an incredible campaign. I had a great meeting with him this week and thanked him for shining the spotlight on issues like economic inequality, and the outsized influence of money in our politics,” Obama said.
Sanders vowed to “do everything in my power” to prevent presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump from succeeding Obama, and seemed to step back from his pledge to fight Clinton at the Democratic convention in July.
“These are some of the issues that many millions of Americans have supported during my campaign,” Sanders said about his campaign’s themes of economic inequality and more equal distribution of political power away from the wealthiest. “These are the issues that we will take to the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia at the end of July.”
