President Barack Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton after staying on the sidelines during the primary. President Obama endorses Hillary Clinton 'I don’t think there’s ever been someone so qualified to hold this office,' Obama says in a video supporting Clinton.

President Barack Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton on Thursday, saying, “I don’t think there’s ever been someone so qualified to hold this office."

The forceful show of support, which came after Obama met with Sen. Bernie Sanders for more than an hour at the White House, was designed to unite the party ahead of what is expected to be an especially brutal general election against Donald Trump.


The first joint appearance with Clinton and Obama will take place next Wednesday in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

In a phone interview with POLITICO on Thursday, Clinton said Obama “told me specifically Tuesday night” after she claimed the Democratic nomination that he was planning to back her campaign, and she noted that he “has been very supportive to me throughout this campaign.”

She added that “we went from being fierce competitors to true friends, and I’m very grateful for this endorsement.”

When asked whether the popular president will play the role of attack dog on the campaign trail, she said: “He's raring to get out there and start campaigning, and I really look forward to being with him."

Obama, Clinton said, "has made it clear he thought his job was to remind the American people that being president is a really serious responsibility, with a lot of hard choices and high stakes. I think he is uniquely able to speak to the American people about the knowledge and experience and temperament that the presidency requires.”

Obama for months has signaled his support for Clinton, who spent four years as his secretary of state after losing out to the freshman senator during a bitter primary battle in 2008.

After Clinton amassed the backing of enough delegates on Monday to clinch the nomination, Obama became more open about his warm feelings for Clinton and his plans to play a major role in unifying the Democratic Party. Sanders mounted a surprisingly strong challenge in the primary.

The Clinton campaign released a video Thursday afternoon in which Obama expresses why he’s excited to hit the trail for Clinton.

“Look, 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 this office,” Obama said.

“She’s got the courage, the compassion and the heart to get the job done. And I say that as somebody who had to debate her more than 20 times. Even after our own hard-fought campaign, in a testament to her character, she agreed to serve her country as secretary of state.”

Clinton said in the interview with POLITICO that throughout the campaign she has been in contact with Obama, but she demurred when asked whether she has long expected the endorsement. “I think he was very even-handed during the campaign,” she said. “I think that was appropriate. Obviously he knows me well; we worked closely together. As he says in his endorsement, he has seen me in action, and I believe that’s the basis for the endorsement that he’s making today. I think he can be helpful in a lot of states. We’re talking about where we will campaign together to begin the general election effort. Stay tuned. We'll be making those decisions and letting you know."

As for another high-profile politician who is reportedly set to endorse Clinton, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the presumptive Democratic nominee said she believes Warren would be qualified to serve as vice president. “I have the highest regard for Sen. Warren,” she said. “I think she is an incredible public servant, eminently qualified for any role. I look forward to working with her on behalf of not only the campaign and her very effective critique of Trump, but also on the issues that she and I both care about.”

Clinton appeared less open to the idea of Sanders on the ticket. “I think he has contributed greatly to the campaign — his passions for the issues that he promoted has been good for the Democratic and for the country. I look forward to talking with him when our campaigns can find a time that works with both of our schedules." When pressed, she said: "I'm not anywhere near thinking about that."

As for giving him concessions at the Democratic National Convention in July, Clinton said the goal is to unify the party, and she highlighted similarities between their campaigns.

“My team in 2008 worked with then-Sen. Obama’s team on the platform,” she said. “Sen. Sanders has made some very strong points. We share the same goals. That may have gotten a little lost in the back and forth of the campaign. We both want to get to universal health care coverage, we both want to raise the minimum wage, we are going to make college affordable and crack down on abuses in the financial markets. We’ve got a lot of the same goals. We’re going to stay focused on the goals.”

Clinton said she looks forward to debating Trump but would not say how many debates she would like to see on the fall schedule. “I think there’s a presidential debate commission that makes that decision; I haven’t looked that far ahead, I don’t really know,” she said. “But I am looking forward to debating him whenever and for however many times they schedule.”

Obama, insiders said, has been eager to begin campaigning for Clinton, and his aides have positioned him as a strong surrogate to make an economic argument for his former secretary of state.

But Obama has already played an important role in Clinton’s campaign, even from the sidelines. Since Day One of her campaign, she has highlighted the story of how two one-time rivals came together to serve their country — and the story of how he took her by surprise while she was taking a walk in the woods with her husband, Bill Clinton, by calling and asking her to serve as his secretary of state.

She’s invoked Obama in debates against Sanders, using him as a shield against the charge that she is beholden to Wall Street because of campaign donations she has accepted, pointing that Obama accepted them, too.

In the video, Obama made clear that he has no hesitation about Clinton’s readiness for the highest office. “From the decision we made in the Situation Room to get Bin Laden to our pursuit of diplomacy in capitals around the world, I have seen her judgment, I have seen her commitment to our values up close,” he said. “I’ve seen her determination to give every American a fair shot at opportunity, no matter how tough the fight was. That’s what has always driven her, and it still does. So I want those of you who have been with me from the beginning of this incredible journey to be the first to know that I’m with her, I am fired up, and I cannot wait to get out there and campaign for Hillary.”

Reflecting back on the emotional primary, Clinton said it has been harder to keep it together on rope lines and in coffee shops than it was delivering her historical speech Tuesday night, claiming the nomination.

“There have been so many emotional moments, that little girl who was worried about her parents being deported in Las Vegas,” she said. “Grabbing people's hands who were sobbing in front of me about their child lost to addiction and how hard they tried to keep their son or daughter alive. There have been so many moments when the sheer emotional feelings of the people I'm talking with or the stories they're telling me have really been overwhelming.”

Of her speech, which she managed to get through without choking up, she said, "you can practice a speech, and if the first five times you get all teared up, you can keep practicing so that you can deliver it without breaking down in front of millions of people. When somebody you meet on a rope line or encounter in a coffee shop or at one of our small meetings where I’m really listening to people say something like that, it's so incredibly touching to me that people share their deepest feelings and concerns with me. It really gives me a sense of responsibility about what I hope to be able to do as president.”

