Testifying to US Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton’s grit and experience, US President Barack Obama on Thursday endorsed his former secretary of state’s bid to succeed him and urged Democrats to line up behind her.
It was all part of a carefully orchestrated pressure campaign aimed at easing Clinton’s rival, US Senator Bernie Sanders, toward the exit and turning fully to the fight against Republican presumptive presidential nominee 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.
Photo: EPA
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 judgement. 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.
Photo: AFP
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 convention next month 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 week’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,” Sanders said in the final sentence of an hour-long address.
In another sign of Democratic unification, US Senator Elizabeth Warren also endorsed Clinton. The Massachusetts senator had been the only holdout among the US Senate’s Democratic women, and her endorsement sends a signal to Sanders’ progressive supporters that it is time to unite around the party’s presumptive nominee.
“I am ready to get in this fight and work my heart out for Hillary Clinton to become the next president of the United States and to make sure that Donald Trump never gets anyplace close to the White House,” Warren said on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show.
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.
The White House taped Obama’s endorsement video at the White House on Tuesday, before Clinton claimed victory in the primary, and had alerted Sanders earlier in the week that it was coming.
Sanders arrived at the White House prepared with his statement.
The careful choreography was part of the Democrats’ attempt to show some respect to the senator, even as they steered him toward the campaign off-ramp.
Obama greeted Sanders and his wife in the residence and then strolled with the senator, smiling and laughing warmly, past the Rose Garden to the Oval Office, as cameras recorded the moment.
The ceremony and scrutiny did not appear to faze Sanders.
Ever the everyman, he started the day by stopping for a cup of coffee and a scone at the Peet’s coffee shop across from the White House, while dozens of reporters awaited his arrival.
Sanders campaign spokesman Michael Briggs had little to say about the conversation with the president, saying the men discussed “how we can all work together to create an economy that works for all people.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of