White House preparing for Obama’s endorsement of Clinton: US media

US President Barack Obama is set to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for the 2016 election.

Various US media outlets made the announcement Monday, citing American officials and other sources.

White House officials were determining about when and how Obama, along with Vice President Joe Biden, should announce his formal endorsement.

The signal from the White House came on a day that Obama’s former secretary of state secured enough delegates to become the presumptive Democratic nominee.

“He has indicated he wants to spend a lot of time on the campaign trail, so when it’s time to do that, we’ll go out guns ablazing,” White House Communications Director Jennifer Psaki told the New York Times in an interview. “We are actively thinking through how to use the president on the campaign trail — what works for the nominee, what works for him, and how to utilize his strengths and his appeal.”

Hillary, meanwhile, was hoping to be endorsed by the president, according to her communications director, Jennifer Palmieri.

“There’s no one better to lay out the two paths voters will face in the fall elections,” Palmieri said, “and he is particularly strong at making the economic argument for her.”

The two confronted in the Democratic race for the president back in 2008, which led to Obama’s victory and Clinton’s appointment as the secretary of state.

Democrats want to use the narrative to their benefit for Hillary’s campaign.

“As former opponents, they have an amazing story,” Palmieri said, adding that it would be “hard to imagine a more convincing advocate for her.”

The president’s endorsement could bring about an end to the campaign run by her rival, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

“He’s been very respectful of both of them and careful not to put his thumb on the scale, but at some point, the verdict is the verdict, and that point is almost certainly Tuesday, which is what he was saying,” said David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Obama’s presidential campaign and at the White House. “I expect that he’ll be a force for trying to move this process along so the party can consolidate and unify.”

Speaking in the first city he visited as the president, Obama indicated last Wednesday that he would support Clinton.

He noted that primaries in California and New Jersey and some other states would yield a “pretty good sense of who the nominee will end up being.”

Obama also attacked the Republican economic agenda during his speech in Elkhart, Indiana, without naming the presumptive nominee, Donald Trump.

In a statement in Miami last Friday, Obama expressed his determination for the Democratic Party to win back the White House and the currently-Republican-controlled Congress.

“We've got the better arguments here. And the issue is going to be do we feel the same sense of urgency, and are we engaged and are we participating to make sure that we win a White House and we get back a Congress that can move this country forward in a constructive way," Obama said. "I'm going to work as hard as I can to make sure those things happen."

According to the Times, Obama is “particularly enthusiastic” to take on Trump.

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