Obama predicts that Biden will have a smooth glide to the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination: 'I think the Democratic Party is unified'

Former President Barack Obama shakes hands with President Joe Biden during the unveiling of Obama's White House portrait. Carolyn Kaster/AP

• Obama predicted that President Biden would face an easy path to the Dem nomination.
• "I think the Democratic Party is unified," Obama told CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour this week.
• Obama made the remarks even as Biden faces challenges from RFK Jr. and Marianne Williamson.

Former President Barack Obama, in a recent interview, predicted that President Joe Biden would have smooth sailing on his journey to secure the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination.

Biden, who represented Delaware in the US Senate from 1973 to 2009 before serving as vice president under Obama from 2009 to 2017, has strongly supported the tenure of his former No. 2, pointing to the president's record on everything from the Inflation Reduction Act to his judicial picks.

And even with other Democratic candidates in a race that includes attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a scion of the Kennedy political family and an anti-vaccine activist — and progressive and former 2020 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, Obama is already looking to a general election that in his opinion will feature Biden as the party's standard-bearer.

"I think Joe Biden has done an extraordinary job leading the country through some very difficult times," Obama said in a sit-down interview with CNN chief international correspondent and anchor Christiane Amanpour.

"I do not think that there's going to be any kind of serious primary challenge to Joe Biden," the former president continued to say, dismissing any intraparty challenges to Biden. "I think the Democratic Party is unified."

Obama said that Biden was able to unify the party after defeating Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont in a competitive 2020 primary, with liberals and moderates coming together that year in a successful effort to oust then-President Donald Trump from the White House.

"The truth is that partly because of how Joe has governed, those divisions have been bridged," the former president said.