Obama offers ‘personal testimonial’ for Biden at first joint event of campaign
The event in Flint, Michigan, was the first of two events the former president will headline with Biden on Saturday, with another event taking place later in Detroit. Both events, the first time the duo has been on stage together with either one of them on a presidential ticket since 2012, take places in predominantly Black cities that will be critical to Biden’s success in Michigan on Tuesday.
“Joe Biden is my brother. I love Joe Biden. And he will be a great president,” Obama said, noting that while he didn’t know Biden well when he selected him to be his running mate, he learned quickly that Biden treated everyone with “dignity and with respect.”
“That sense of decency and empathy, the belief in hard work and family and faith, the belief that everyone counts, that is who Joe is and that is who he will be as president,” Obama said, adding that Biden “made me a better president.”
“He has got the character and the experience to make us a better country,” Obama said. “And he and Kamala are going to be in the fight, not for themselves, but for every single one of us. And we sure can’t say that about the president we have got right now.”
Obama noted that his speech was happening during the Michigan-Michigan State Football game, a heated rivalry where the Paul Bunyan Trophy was “on the line.”
“But this Tuesday, everything is on the line,” Obama said, noting the future of the economy, health care and the pandemic.
An Obama aide said earlier that the former president would give Biden a “personal testimonial to voters in the homestretch about Joe Biden’s ability to lead us out of this pandemic… and to build America back even better.”
The former president also planned to use the speech to tout down-ballot Democrats, such as Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, who is locked in a tight race against Republican John James.
Obama has been one of Biden’s most forceful defenders on the campaign trail, using a series of events this month to lay into President Donald Trump as ill-prepared for and uninterested in the presidency. Obama has also routinely touted Biden as the right man for the presidency at this moment of crisis, when the coronavirus is continuing to spread and the economy is rattled.
Obama’s most pointed critiques of Trump have focused on the coronavirus and that is expected to continue on Saturday in Michigan, where cases are spiking.
“What’s his closing argument? That people are too focused on Covid. He said this at one of his rallies. Covid, Covid, Covid, he’s complaining,” Obama said in Florida this week. “He’s jealous of Covid’s media coverage. If he had been focused on Covid from the beginning, cases wouldn’t be reaching new record highs across the country this week.”
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
