Former President Barack Obama will endorse his former vice president, Joe Biden, for president in a video scheduled for release on Tuesday morning, according to NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander.
Obama infamously opted against endorsing Biden at the start of his campaign, something the former vice president has said was done at his behest.
“I asked President Obama not to endorse,” Biden said upon launching his campaign last April. “Whoever wins this nomination should win it on their own merits.”
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However, reports indicate that Obama held off on the endorsement due to a host of concerns regarding Biden’s candidacy.
“You don’t have to do this, Joe, you really don’t,” Obama told Biden before the 76-year-old kicked off his campaign, according to the New York Times. The Times further reported that Obama met with top Biden aides last March to ensure that the former vice president does not “damage his legacy” or “embarrass himself.”
The announcement is slated to come one day after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) endorsed Biden’s White House bid, cementing the former vice president as the Democrat Party’s nominee.
“I am asking all Americans — I’m asking every Democrat, I’m asking every independent, I’m asking a lot of Republican — to come together in this campaign to support your candidacy which I endorse,” Sanders said during a livestream with Biden.
“It’s no great secret Joe that you and I have our differences, and we are not going to paper them over. That’s real,” added the Vermont senator. “But I hope that these task forces will come together, utilizing the best minds and people in your campaign and in my campaign, to work out real solutions to these very, very important problems.”
Biden called the endorsement a “big deal” and stated that he will need Sanders’ support to beat President Donald Trump in a general election contest.
“If I am the nominee, which it looks like now you just made me, I am going to need you, not just to win the campaign, but to govern,” he said.