In interview, Obama seems to back Clinton over Sanders

US President Barack Obama made comments seemingly backing Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the Democratic race for presidency, in a lengthy interview published Monday.

The outgoing US president was trying to avoid endorsing any of the two candidates openly but was described by Politico as viewing Clinton with “obvious affection” and preferring her as the person more suitable to safeguard and continue the policies Obama enacted during his two terms.

“[The] one thing everybody understands is that this job right here, you don’t have the luxury of just focusing on one thing,” Obama told the US politics website, apparently in reference to Clinton rival Sanders’ overwhelming focus on internal affairs. The comment may also imply that Clinton’s political experience — including serving as Obama’s own secretary of state during his first term — makes her a more suitable candidate.

When asked if Sanders reminded Obama of himself before his first term, in 2008, the president dismisses the comparison: “I don’t think that’s true.”

The US president answered a terse “yes” when asked by the interviewer whether Clinton is facing “unfair scrutiny” over her use of a private server for classified emails and her conduct during the terrorist siege on the US Embassy in Libya in 2012.

“Bernie came in with the luxury of being a complete long shot and just letting loose,” he said. “I think Hillary came in with the both privilege — and burden — of being perceived as the front-runner. … You’re always looking at the bright, shiny object that people haven’t seen before — that’s a disadvantage to her,” Obama said.

A long-serving Democrat, albeit one who serves in the Senate as an independent, the Jewish Sanders’ left-leaning views within the party and his own self-definition as a “socialist” make him a maverick in the party almost to the degree GOP front-runner Donald Trump has shaken the Republican race.

Obama “repeatedly praised Clinton without reservation,” according to Politico writer Glenn Thrush, but described Sanders as an outsider seeking to change “terms of the debate that were set by Ronald Reagan 30 years ago.”

On Sunday, Sanders commented on reports former New York City mayor and businessman Michael Bloomberg may enter the race by saying it would be “interesting” if he did so.

“I think it would be very interesting if Donald Trump became the Republican candidate who is a multi-billionaire, and Michael Bloomberg became an independent candidate who is a multi-billionaire,” Sanders said Sunday in an interview on “ABC News This Week.”

The New York Times on Saturday anonymously quoted aides and associates of Bloomberg, 73, a media magnate and three-term mayor, as saying he saw an opening in case Trump and Sanders won the Republican and Democratic nominations, respectively.

Bloomberg’s entrance into the race, Sanders told anchor Martha Raddatz, “will tell people what I have been saying for a long time is that this country is moving away from democracy to oligarchy that billionaires are the people who are controlling our political life.”

American democracy, Sanders said, is not supposed to be about a contest between billionaires.

“If that takes place, I am confident that we will win it,” he said.

Also Sunday, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said he would welcome Bloomberg’s candidacy.

“I would love to have Michael get into the race. I would personally like to compete with Michael Bloomberg,” Trump told CBS’ “Face the Nation” in a phone interview Sunday morning.

Bloomberg, who is Jewish, said he would be willing to spend $1 billion of his own money on a presidential run. He made his fortune, now valued at approximately $40 billion, from the media and financial data company he founded, Bloomberg L.P.