Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the panic over Biden’s debate performance was driven by the media and “political elites,” not voters.
Following Biden’s scathing criticism of last Thursday’s debate, CNN host John Berman pressed the former Democratic National Committee chairman on how the Biden campaign can allay voters’ concerns about the president’s age and fitness to serve.
“Let’s be honest, John, this is a conversation that’s happening among elites,” Wasserman Schultz told Berman, praising the president’s record on the economy and health care. “My local voters, voters across this country, aren’t paying attention to what The New York Times or The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is saying. They’re not paying attention to what the political elites are worried about. They’re paying attention to making sure we have a president like Joe Biden.”
After Biden’s lackluster performance in the debate, numerous sympathetic voices have called for him to withdraw from the debate, including The Times, the Chicago Tribune, the AJC, The View, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and New York Times columnists Thomas Friedman, Paul Krugman and Nicholas Kristof.
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Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said only “elites” were worried about the widespread panning of President Biden’s performance in the debate. (CNN/Screenshot)
“No matter where you were or who you talked to this weekend, I think the topic of discussion was the debate and President Biden’s performance,” Berman said.
But Wasserman Schultz said Democrats in her district care about Biden’s record and want the party to move forward and stop worrying about the debates.
“When I spoke to constituents in my district, they said they want to make sure we get serious, we move forward, we organize, we mobilize, and that’s what we need to do now,” she said.
“At the end of the day, we have to stop. We don’t have time to worry like this,” she added.
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President Joe Biden’s debate performance renewed concerns about his age and fitness for the presidency. (Getty Images)
While Wasserman Schultz advised the party to move forward regardless of those concerns, other Biden allies offered very different advice.
Former Obama campaign chairman David Plouffe said on Sunday: Democratic Party They should be “honest” about the possibility of Biden winning the election without the support of more voters.
“I think Biden is at rock bottom right now as far as his campaign goes, so you have to think he can grow from here,” Plouffe told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki, a former Biden spokesperson.
“Can Joe Biden overcome that?” he asked. “I think he can. But we have to be honest about where we are, which is, we’re not going to win unless we get more voters to say, ‘Actually, I think he can win this.'”
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According to a CNN poll, debate viewers felt that former President Trump won the debate against President Biden. (Getty Images)
A CNN poll found that viewers of the debate felt former President Trump had beaten Biden by a landslide, with more than two-thirds believing Trump had won and 33% backing Biden.
Fox News’ Jeffrey Clark contributed to this report.
