Ex-White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that President Biden’s “bad” debate performance last week was not because of the debate prep — despite reported swipes by first family members that top aides worked him too hard.
Psaki, who left the White House in May 2022 to host her own show on MSNBC, said it was “absurd” for detractors to blame former chief of staff Ron Klain and senior adviser Anita Dunn for mucking things up during the 81-year-old’s week-long rehearsal at Camp David.
“It was a bad debate. I have no doubt they were tough, strategic and direct (Believe me I have seen them in action),” she posted on X.
“Biden was bad,” she emphasized again. “Important convos about what happens next. But if you are directing your ire at ‘prep’ you are not talking about the right things.”
Other critics had scoffed at Biden aides attempts to downplay the president’s poor showing by claiming he had a cold.
But the Biden campaign admitted to their candidate’s stumble in a new TV ad released Monday, which includes remarks the president delivered the Friday after the debate that exclaimed, “I know I’m not a young man.”
Klain, Dunn, and her husband and Biden’s lawyer Bob Bauer, could be fired over the president’s disastrous performance before tens of millions of American viewers of the CNN debate, sources told Politico.
Members of the first family, irate over the bruising Biden took in his face-off with former President Donald Trump, have suggested that the trio worked the Democratic incumbent too hard in the days beforehand.
They also suggested that their advice kept the oldest-ever president from going on the offensive, which left him open to brutal attacks about his age and lack of mental fitness.
None of the family members wanted the patriarch’s wounded pride to result in his withdrawal from the 2024 re-election campaign, with first son Hunter Biden the most adamant about his father remaining in the fight.
Biden fundraiser John Morgan joined the Biden family in denouncing Dunn’s handling of the debate prep, saying she should “be fired forever” for “political malpractice.”
“It is my belief that he was over-coached, over-practiced. And I believe Anita Dunn… put him in a venue that was conducive for Trump and not for him,” said Morgan, a Florida-based attorney.
Former President Barack Obama also acknowledged that Biden’s debate performance Thursday night was “bad” — but called on voters to turn out in large numbers to re-elect his former veep over Donald Trump.
“Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know,” he posted on X Friday afternoon, referencing his failure to perform in his first debate against Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012.
But other left-of-center media figures melted down the same day over Biden’s failure in the CNN debate, with the powerful New York Times editorial board calling for him to step aside and let the Democratic Party nominate a successor candidate.