More signs of imminent Biden 2020 launch, as ad shoot turns into a 'hot mess'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}New signs emerged this week that it’s all but certain former Vice President Joe Biden will be announcing a presidential campaign in the very near future.
One of those signals comes Thursday when Biden – who’s long been a friend to the labor movement – travels to Boston to speak with striking supermarket employees in southern New England.
TRUMP PREDICTS BIDEN, SANDERS, WILL BE THE TWO DEM 2020 FINALISTS
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}That’s a very intentional move.
But another sign apparently came by accident.
Supporters of the former vice president were filming a Spanish-language commercial over the weekend in South Florida. Word of the shoot was supposed to be kept quiet, with Politico reporting that local actors paid to take part in the ad were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements promising not to discuss the shoot.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}But some images were posted on social media, which ignited a flurry of email warnings calling for the images to be deleted.
“We are in a hot mess with campaign and client because someone leaked footage,” read a Monday email to the actors that Politico obtained. The email speculated that the images were from “some moms taking photo/video of their kids while they were being filmed.”
It's not clear if Biden’s soon-to-be presidential campaign was behind the ad – or if it was American Possibilities, the political committee supporting the former vice president, or another group.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}POLLS SUGGEST VOTERS SHRUGGING OFF BIDEN INAPPROPRIATE TOUCHING CONTROVERSY
Meanwhile, Biden will speak Thursday in Boston to striking Stop & Shop workers in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston.
Approximately 31,000 employees of the southern New England-based grocery chain’s employees have been on strike since last week. The chain – the largest in New England – is one of the last remaining union supermarkets in the industry.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts spoke on Friday with the striking Stop & Shop employees, who are members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International union.
Later that day, Biden took to Twitter to write “in the last 5 years, @StopandShop's parent company has bought back billions of dollars in stock. Now they want to cut employee wages & benefits. This is wrong. I stand with the 31,000 @UFCW workers fighting for their healthcare. Join me and support them.”
Biden’s trip to Boston comes days before a likely presidential announcement.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Sources close to the former vice president have told Fox News that the launch of a campaign – which would be Biden’s third for the White House – would come after Easter, which is Sunday, and possibly as early as next week. The sources add that a campaign staff is being lined up and Biden political advisers are in the process of hiring staff in the early voting primary and caucus states.