Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that President Biden’s “terrible” performance at last week’s debate wasn’t due to his preparation for the debate, despite reports that the president’s family had criticized aides for being too closely coached.
Psaki, who is set to leave the White House in May 2022 to host her own show on MSNBC, said it was “absurd” for critics to blame former chief of staff Ron Klain and senior adviser Anita Dunn for ruining things during the 81-year-old’s week-long rehearsals at Camp David.
“It was a nasty debate. There’s no doubt they were tough, strategic and direct (I’ve seen them in action),” she said. Post to X.
“Biden was bad,” she reiterated, “an important conversation about what happens next. But if you’re directing your anger at ‘preparedness,’ you’re not having the right conversation.”
Other critics mocked attempts by Biden’s aides to downplay the president’s slump by claiming he had a cold.
But the Biden campaign acknowledged the candidate’s gaffe in a new television ad released Monday that also includes the president shouting “I know I’m not young” on Friday after the debate.
Klain, Dunn and her husband, Biden lawyer Bob Bauer, could be fired following the president’s disastrous performance in front of tens of millions of American viewers at the CNN debate, the sources said. POLITICO.
The Trump family has been furious at the damage Biden suffered in his run-off against former President Donald Trump, suggesting the three candidates went too hard on the incumbent Democratic president in the days leading up to the showdown.
He also suggested their advice would have prevented the oldest president in history from going on the offensive and being subjected to relentless attacks about his age and lack of mental fitness.
While no one in the family wanted the patriarch’s pride to be so wounded that he would withdraw from the 2024 reelection campaign, his eldest son, Hunter Biden, has been the most vocal advocate for his father to remain in the fight.
Biden fundraiser John Morgan, along with the Biden family, condemned Dunn’s handling of debate preparations and said he “should be permanently fired” for “political misconduct.”
“I think he was overcoached, over-rehearsed, and Anita Dunn put him in a venue that was convenient for Trump,” said Morgan, a Florida lawyer.
Former President Barack Obama also acknowledged that Biden’s performance in Thursday night’s debate was “bad,” but urged voters to tune in in large numbers to re-elect the former vice president over Donald Trump.
“There are going to be bad debate nights. Trust me, I get it,” he posted on X on Friday afternoon, referencing his poor performance in the first debate with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012.
But other center-left media figures were incensed by Biden’s loss in the CNN debate the same day, and the influential New York Times editorial board called on Biden to step down and let the Democrats nominate a successor.
