Democratic Strategist Reacts To 'Lying' From White House About Biden 'Behind Closed Doors'

6 months ago

On "Forbes Newsroom," Democratic strategist Melissa DeRosa reacted to President Biden's debate performance and the response from Democratic voters and lower level members of the party.

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Transcript

00:00Have you back last night was a historic night, a presidential debate between Donald Trump and

00:05Joe Biden. And you posed this question for Democrats. Do we acknowledge the complicated

00:11politics of our party and change horses or crawl back under the covers and pretend it was all a

00:16bad dream? What's the answer to that after you see Joe Biden's performance last night?

00:23You know, Brittany, last night was there's no sugarcoating this. It was an unmitigated disaster.

00:28I mean, from start to finish. And I wrote about this in a piece in The Daily Beast where, you

00:32know, literally within minutes of the debate starting, I was getting text messages across

00:37my phone, you know, from Democrats in New York and California and swing states all saying, you know,

00:42this is an unmitigated disaster. And what do we do? And the only way to change perception is with

00:49reality. And the problem is the perception of the electorate is that Joe Biden is too old.

00:55And in poll after poll, we see that that is a greater concern to the American public

01:00than the fact that Donald Trump is a convicted criminal. And so last night, he had one thing

01:06that he had to do, which was present to the extent that he could energetic. There needed to be color

01:12in his face. He needed to be coherent. He needed to land a punch or two. And he not only didn't do

01:18any of those things. He was dawdling. His mouth was open, agape, you know, almost as if they didn't

01:24tell him he was going to be on a split screen. And it just at a certain point, it felt almost

01:30mean. And so, you know, there's a lot of talk this morning amongst the Democratic Party,

01:34a very high circle saying, what now? And the problem is, given where we are in the calendar,

01:40I don't know that there's an answer. I just got off a conversation with a political strategist

01:45and a political scientist, rather. And they said the mood isn't gloating. If you're a Republican,

01:53the mood isn't all around sorrow. I mean, he said when you watched that you couldn't help but feel

01:59bad for Joe Biden. And I had lifelong Democrats texting me last night telling me, hey, I voted

02:06for Hillary Clinton. I voted for Joe Biden in 2020. I'm watching this. I have to turn it off.

02:12And I cannot vote for Donald Trump, but I cannot in good conscience vote for Joe Biden. What do

02:17you think about that? You know, look, we already had an enthusiasm gap issue.

02:22I think especially after the Trump conviction. And we saw that in the New York Times Siena poll

02:27a couple of days ago. We saw it in the Q poll that dropped where he was picking up national

02:32steam. And what you're seeing is the Republican Party was solidifying behind him in a way that

02:37you're not seeing the Democratic Party do with Biden. And I think after last night,

02:41what your friend or what the person was just on expressed to you is, I think, exactly what's

02:47happening. I think people are saying, I cannot, in good conscience, go pull the lever for Joe

02:52Biden. And we are still a country that needs to have a leader that is cogent, coherent, can lead.

02:59And after last night's performance, that was all, you know, thrown in doubt. And I agree with you

03:04that I think that there is even the cover of The New York Post, notorious tabloid. You know,

03:08I was waiting to see what kind of sort of gratuitous shot they were going to take. And

03:12this morning, their front page was like, this is sad. And I'll tell you that the feeling amongst

03:18the Democrats I'm talking to is also a lot of anger, because there are a lot of people in the

03:22Democratic Party who feel that the people in the White House and people like Chuck Schumer and

03:28others, cabinet secretaries, have been lying to Democrats at very high levels about what's

03:34going on behind closed doors.

Democratic Strategist Reacts To 'Lying' From White House About Biden 'Behind Closed Doors'

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