Although it’s no surprise, President Obama is preparing to endorse Hillary Clinton for president, perhaps as early as this week.
Mr. Obama will be traveling to Manhattan on Wednesday, the day after Mrs. Clinton is expected to wrap up the Democratic nomination in her protracted battle against Sen. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent.
Her campaign headquarters in Brooklyn would be just a short side trip away for the president.
While the White House hasn’t said the president plans to make an announcement on Wednesday, Mr. Obama is known to be eager to step into the campaign fray against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
“I don’t have any news to make on the timing of a presidential endorsement,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday.
Mr. Earnest said it’s been a generation or more since there was a two-term president “in demand” on the campaign trail in his final year in office — a dig at both Bill Clinton, who was impeached in his second term, and Republican George W. Bush, who administration was mired in a recession.
Both CNN and the New York Times, citing White House sources, said the president’s endorsement is imminent.
Mr. Obama is scheduled to raise campaign cash for Democrats in New York, including at a fundraiser for wealthy donors at the home of Huffington Post co-founder Kenneth Lerer and wife Katherine Sailer.
At a fundraiser in Florida on Friday, Mr. Obama said Democrats need to “run scared” for the fall campaign.
“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,” Mr. Obama said. “I’m going to work as hard as I can to make sure those things happen.”
Later in the week, Mr. Obama is scheduled to host an LGBT Pride Month reception at the White House. Activists are hoping that he’ll also announce the first LGBT national monument, by designating the historic Stonewall Inn in New York City for its status as a landmark of the gay-rights movement.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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