Obama: Clinton Most Qualified Presidential Candidate Ever
After officially endorsing Hillary Clinton, President Barack Obama made his first joint campaign appearance for the 2016 presidential election at a July 5 rally for her in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“Everybody can tweet, but nobody actually knows what it takes to do the job until you’ve sat behind the desk,” Obama said at the event, according to CNBC. “There has never been any man or woman more qualified for this office than Hillary, ever, and that’s the truth.”
After telling the crowd that he was “fired up” to campaign for her, he went on to blast presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump for his stances on immigration and gun control.
“This is not a reality show, this is reality,” Obama said in a jab at Trump. “I’m ready to pass the baton, and I know that Hillary Clinton is going to take it.”
Clinton thanked the president for his support before he took the stage and spoke.
“I feel very privileged because I’ve known the president in many roles, as a colleague in the Senate, as an opponent in a hard-fought primary, and as the president I was so proud to serve as secretary of state,” Clinton said of Obama.
She lauded Obama for working to increase health care coverage and sustainable energy production as well as for “saving our economy” in the face of a second Great Depression.
“I’ve also known [President Obama] as the friend that I was honored to stand with in the good times and the hard times, someone who has never forgotten where he came from, and Donald if you’re out there tweeting, it’s Hawaii,” she added, referring to Trump’s frequent skepticism of Obama’s true birthplace.
During his speech, Obama said that Clinton “has her share of critics” due to being “actually in the arena” for so long, though he did not specifically mention FBI Director James Comey’s July 5 announcement discouraging the Department of Justice from indicting Clinton for her use of emails as secretary of state. In that address, Comey said that he did not expect prosecutors to press charges even though there was “evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information,” according to the FBI press release.