Biden says Barack “helps a lot,” as Obama says after affirmative action decision

President Joe Biden revealed at a fundraiser in New York City on Thursday night that his former boss, President Barack Obama, “helped a lot.”

Obama returned to the White House on Tuesday to have lunch with the president as Biden has started campaigning as part of his re-election bid and has been busy fundraising.

Biden held fundraisers this week in New York, Chicago and Chevy Chase, Maryland, one of Washington, DC’s posh suburbs.

To the first of two groups he addressed in New York, Biden joked that every time he hears Hail to the Chief, he still looks around for Obama.

Earlier Thursday, the two presidents — as well as former first lady Michelle Obama — fell in line in their Supreme Court conviction for undermining affirmative discrimination in college admissions.

However, the Obamas were able to give the messages a more personal touch as they talked about Black Americans being accepted into some of the top colleges and law schools in the country.

“Like any policy, affirmative action was not perfect. But it enabled generations of students like Michelle and me to prove we belonged,” President Obama said in a statement.

“Now it’s up to all of us to give young people the opportunities they deserve — and help students everywhere take advantage of new perspectives,” the ex-president added.

The former president attended Occidental College for two years and then transferred to New York University.

He then attended Harvard Law School and was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.

Michelle Obama went to Princeton for undergrad and then Harvard Law School.

In a lengthy statement, she recalled being one of the few black students on the Princeton campus.

“I knew I had worked hard for it. Still, sometimes I wondered if people thought I got there because of affirmative action,” she said. “It was a shadow that students like me couldn’t shake, whether those doubts came from outside or from within.”

“But the fact is this: I belonged,” she continued. “And semester after semester, decade after decade, for more than half a century, countless students like me showed they belonged too.”

She argued that students of color and white students benefited from affirmative action because white students heard a “perspective” they may not have had before.

“It wasn’t perfect, but there’s no question that it helped bring new ladders of opportunity to those who too often in our history have been denied the chance to show how fast they can climb,” the former first lady said. .

She noted how a number of students are getting “special admissions attention,” pointing the finger at older students and students from “upscale” high schools.

‘Usually we don’t ask ourselves if those students belong,’ she said. “So often we just accept that money, power and privilege are perfectly justifiable forms of affirmative action, while kids growing up like me are expected to compete when the ground is anything but level.”

She went on to say that her “heart breaks for any young person wondering what their future holds – and what kind of opportunities are open to them.”

The former first lady then asked people to take action by supporting organizations that help immigrant students.