Ex-Obama adviser David Axelrod was struck dumb by President Joe Bidne’s dismal approval numbers on CNN conceding “the country is in a sour mood’ due to Biden’s abject failures and that Joe is in ‘deep, deep trouble.’
CNN anchor Poppy Harlow said Biden’s numbers are bad while former Biden Communications Director Kate Bedingfield tried to spin the numbers but failed.
DAVID AXELROD: Yeah. Poppy, I heard you say they were fascinating. I forget what the other word you used. I’m not so sure that’s how the president will receive them over his morning coffee this morning.
These these numbers are not good, but and they’re consistent with most of the other polling that we’ve seen. The country is in a sour mood. He’s not getting credit for what I think is a fairly substantial list of achievements.
And there is real concern about his age. And that has been true for some time. It continues to be true. And the reality is if if this were a referendum, he would be he would be in deep, deep trouble.
The fact, and David just noted it, the fact that he is competitive with the guy who is the runaway frontrunner for the Republican nomination, who has some significant problems of his own, is what he’s looking at.
And, you know, there’s an expression in sports that, you know, sometimes you have to win ugly. And I think that’s what lies ahead here for this president in this White House.
PHIL MATTINGLY: All right, Kate Bedingfield, when we both worked on separate sides of the West Wing, I learned very early on wandering into your office and asking straight up about polling on any given day was likely not to elicit the most friendly response…
KATE BEDINGFIELD: I welcomed it! I welcomed it!
PHIL MATTINGLY: I know you were always when you always had answers and kind of explanations or This is why this matters. This is why you’re missing this, that or the other. What are people missing here that the White House, that the political team for the reelection campaign knows that they’re not seeing?
KATE BEDINGFIELD: Well, remember, polls get you know, polls don’t get asked in a vacuum. And there’s a lot of information that doesn’t get folded in to a question the way it’s posed to somebody who’s responding to a poll.
So, you know, you have voters raise, for example, you know, that they would like to see someone else other than Joe Biden as the nominee. But then when they’re asked specifically who that would be, that number drops down to 1%.
And so what you what you don’t see here is, you know, people being asked about where Republicans, how they feel about where Republicans stand on abortion, on guns. And we saw that dynamic play out in 2022 when people went to the polls and largely rejected what Republicans were offering.
So I think what we aren’t seeing here and what it’s sort of easy to look at a poll and get really sucked into the numbers, Although I’ll tell you, you know, the Biden White House is not going to is not going to be rattled by this because their view is going to be 500 polls between now and Election Day. But there’s a lot of information that that isn’t here.
That’s a reminder that campaigns don’t happen in a vacuum. And it’s on the Biden campaign to make this election a choice and to make it about the contrast between what Republicans are offering and what Biden is offering.
That’s a challenge. I don’t think anybody saying that’s easy. I don’t think the Biden White House would say that’s easy. But that’s the challenge before them is to really make this about the contrast. As Biden would say, don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative.
Poppy Harlow Dismisses The Notion That Border Crisis is a ‘Narrative.’
Natasha Alford: “What Joe Biden often struggles with is – being able to reverse a narrative of failure.”
Poppy Harlow: “It’s not just a narrative! Mayor Adams has called on the Biden White House over and… pic.twitter.com/68cONZZSGp
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 7, 2023
