The Financial Express (Delhi Edition)
OBAMA ‘FIRED UP’ FOR CLINTON AS DEMOCRATS SEEK UNITY
Washington, June 10 : US President Barack Obama formally endorsed Hillary Clinton’s White House bid on Thursday and called for Democrats to unite behind her after a protracted battle with Bernie Sanders for the party nomination.
US Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts also backed Clinton on Thursday, telling MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was “a genuine threat to the country.”
Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, said it “means the world” to her that Obama had her back in a bruising campaign for the November 8 election.
Clinton also said she had the “highest regard” for Warren, a fiery critic of Wall Street, and was “really pleased to have her good ideas and support.”
Vice President Joe Biden also waded into the campaign on Thursday. “Whoever the next president is, and God willing in my view it will be Secretary Clinton,” Biden said in a speech at the American Constitution Society in Washington.
The Obama endorsement increases pressure on Sanders, a US senator from Vermont, to bow out of the race and lend his support to Clinton so that the party can focus on defeating Trump.
“It is absolutely a joy and an honor that President Obama and I over the years have gone from fierce competitors to true friends,” Clinton told Reuters.
After an unexpectedly tough battle against Sanders' challenge from the left, former first lady Clinton made history when she reached the number of delegates needed to win the party nomination this week. That made her the first woman to lead a major US party as its White House candidate.