With Sanders out, will Obama step off the sidelines for Biden?

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Why Joe Biden is lining up former Obama leaders for his cabinet

Charlie Hurt explains why Joe Biden has a litany of former Obama officials on his list of potential cabinet members

With the Democratic presidential primary race officially over and presumptive nominee Joe Biden pivoting to the general election battle ahead with President Trump, the GOP incumbent’s predecessor in the White House could soon re-enter the campaign spotlight.

Fox News has confirmed that former President Barack Obama and Biden – his vice president for eight years – have held several conversations the past couple of weeks.

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Biden confirmed one of those conversations – telling donors at a virtual fundraiser last week that he had recently asked his old boss for advice on choosing a running mate.

“So I called President Obama, not as to who but how soon you have to start,” the former vice president shared.

Biden spoke a couple days before Sen. Bernie Sanders – the former vice president’s last remaining rival for the nomination – suspended his campaign. Obama may have helped facilitate that move – as Fox News confirmed that the former president and the populist senator from Vermont held multiple phone calls in the weeks leading up to Sander’s departure from the race. It’s a role Obama has played with many of the other 2020 Democratic White House hopefuls who had also bowed out of the race.

But Obama's decision to stay on the sidelines throughout the primary race has all along raised uncomfortable questions for Biden, opening the door for Trump himself to repeatedly prod his presumptive rival.

“I don’t know why President Obama hasn’t supported Joe Biden a long time ago. There’s something he feels is wrong. He’ll come out, I’m sure he’s got to come out at some point because he certainly doesn’t want to see me for four more years,” Trump said at Wednesday’s White House briefing, hours after Sanders bowed out.

Even with the delay, however, Obama is poised to hit the campaign trail once more, when he determines the time is right.

A Democratic strategist close to Obama’s inner circle told Fox News that the former president made it clear at the start of the primary process that once it was over he would “campaign vigorously in the general election.”

The strategist – who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely – added that over the past few weeks Obama’s "had multiple conversations with candidates how to best position the Democratic Party to win in November. While the content of those conversations remain private, there was always agreement that winning in the fall was paramount."

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Democrats appear ready for Obama to start weighing in on the 2020 election. Among them is Addisu Demissie, a veteran of the 2008 Obama presidential campaign and the Obama White House political wing, Organizing for America, who managed Sen. Cory Booker’s recent presidential campaign.

“What’s that I see on the horizon?” Demissie wrote in a tweet that included a GIF of Obama and Biden running down a White House corridor.

According to most recent polls of the former president, Obama remains extremely popular among Democrats. And with Sanders out of the race but keeping his name on the upcoming primary ballots to continue to accumulate delegates, Obama could help Biden with the important task of wooing the progressive firebrand and his legions of progressive and younger voters.

“Now that the primary season is over, President Obama can play the role of unifier-in-chief within the Democratic Party,” said Mo Elleithee, the founding executive director of Georgetown University's Institute of Politics and Public Service and a Fox News contributor.

Elleithee, a senior spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign who later served as communications director for the Democratic National Committee, said that Obama’s also “an important voice during these tumultuous times. As polling shows that President Trump’s handling of this crisis is sliding, President Obama can help make the case for Joe Biden’s very different approach.”

Obama’s presence will likely also come in handy with fundraising, helping Biden boost his campaign coffers, and give a needed boost of energy to the Biden campaign.

But those expecting an immediate appearance by the former president may be disappointed. While Obama campaigned with Hillary Clinton soon after she became the presumptive nominee in 2016, Obama’s likely plans to aggressively campaign for and with Biden will likely be delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump didn’t waste any time in questioning why it’s taking so long for Obama to back his former vice president.

“It does amaze me that President Obama hasn’t supported Sleepy Joe. It just hasn’t happened. When it’s going to happen. He knows something that you don’t know. I think I know, but you don’t know,” he said Wednesday.

A source close to the former president explained that "at the beginning of the primary process, President Obama made clear that in order for the Democratic Party to be successful in November, Democratic voters would have to select their nominee."

While political pundits agree that an active Obama can only help Biden as well as down-ballot candidates this autumn, in the end there’s only so much a surrogate can do. Obama aggressively stumped for Clinton, but the Democratic nominee came up short.