The latest Democrat pundit to throw Joe Biden under the bus was James Carville, the former Clinton rainmaker, who took exception to the president’s crowing about the U.S. economy under his watch.
“If you’re 26 years old, you have no hope of buying a house, of educating children, you’re probably living in the basement with your sister in your mother and daddy’s house,” Carville said during a recent interview with Chris Cuomo. And when President Biden talks about how good the economy is, your reaction is, ‘What’s that guy talking about?’”
Carville, father of the famous political admonition, “It’s the economy, stupid,” said he was “joining the head scratchers” over Biden’s assertion that the economy is doing well. “I don’t think, if people don’t feel like they’re in a good economy, you can’t convince ’em,” he said.
Biden was given a pass by CNN’s Erin Burnett when he said on her show that he had inherited 9% inflation when he took over from President Trump, when in fact it was 1.4%. Burnett didn’t challenge the claim but the rest of the world took umbrage over the blatant mistruth. Fueled by record government borrowing and spending, inflation skyrocketed under Biden, leaving Americans shocked by the price of groceries, fuel, housing, and other necessities. The National Debt is $34.7 trillion and is rising by $1 trillion every 100 days, the Gross Domestic Product is paltry, and economists fear an economic quagmire that could rival the Great Depression.
“And I think there’s a bunch of Ivy League economist academic types that go in saying, ‘Sir, this is the best economy we’ve had since 1969, you have to go out and promote it.’ That’s not the world people are living in,” Carville continued. “I agree with the critics that this is not the proper messaging.”
Even Cuomo, the brother of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who left office under a cloud of sexual harassment allegations, took potshots at the president. “There’s a disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street and the president seemed to forget that in this interview,” he said. Following Carville’s remarks, Cuomo quickly shifted the conversation to Robert Kennedy and his bid for the White House. The pair argued against those who predict that the Liberal Democrat will take votes from Biden rather than Trump.
Biden’s blinders on the economy also rankled Van Jones, a former CNN host and Obama’s Special Advisor for Green Jobs, who stated: “It should be a wakeup call. Young people are upset and it’s not just the situation in Gaza. The economic prospects for young people are miserable. We just don’t have a pathway for young people to pay off their student debt, get a house; people are looking at this AI wave and are worried about what job, what career path they will have. So, that pain will have to be spoken to directly and specifically, and I think we’re not yet hearing a full-throated approach to the young people,” Jones said, adding, “There’s a symbolic piece around student loans, but that’s not going to be enough for Joe Biden.”
Joining the chorus was David Axelrod, another Obama acolyte who called Biden’s CNN interview a “terrible mistake.” Panning his campaign for the president's dismal poll numbers, Axelrod said, “I thought they spent $25 million mistakenly last fall touting Bidenomics and making the same argument that the president is making here. People are experiencing the economy through the lens of the cost of living, and he is a man who has built his career on empathy. Why not lead with the empathy?” Axelrod asked. “If he doesn’t win this race, it may not be Donald Trump that beats him; it may be his own pride.”
The commentary by the Democrat stalwarts is seen as a growing move to urge Biden to step aside and let former First Lady Michelle Obama, California Governor Gavin Newsom, or another candidate come in and save the day. The president's physical and cognitive abilities are clearly slipping and his staff, including White House Spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre, have to frequently step in for cleanup when he makes questionable public statements. “The point that he was making is that the factors that caused inflation were in place when he took office,” Jean-Pierre said.