Obama Campaign Spox: Biden’s ‘Chains’ Comment Just Like Republicans Saying ‘Unshackling’
On Tuesday, Deputy Assistant to the President of the United States and the Deputy White House Communications Director Jennifer Psaki appeared on CNN with Wolf Blitzer . There, she was asked if the Barack Obama campaign continued to stand behind comments made by Vice President Joe Biden in which he told an audience of supporters that Republicans are “gonna to put y’all back in chains.” Not only did Psaki stand by those comments, but she said that Republicans err in an equally offensive way when they use the word “unshackling.”
Blitzer played a clip of Biden telling an audience of supporters in Southern Virginia where he made the inflammatory comments. He then asked Psaki “what did he mean.”
“It’s very clear what the Vice President was saying,” said Psaki. “Republicans often use the phrase ‘unshackled’ – they want to be ‘unshackled’ from the Wall Street reforms the President and his team put in place that have really helped address the challenges that we’ve been having to deal with for the past couple of years.”
“The Vice President was using a metaphor,” Psaki continued. “We need to be spared a little bit of this feigned outrage by Republicans because they are out there putting out false ads on the air about Welfare Reform and the President’s record.”
Blitzer said that Biden’s words were uncharacteristically strong and asked Psaki if she felt the Vice President wished he had a “do over.”
Psaki again responded that Republicans in Congress and Mitt Romney often use the term “unshackling” and said that Biden’s comments were equivalent.
“This is a metaphor. People know what he’s talking about. Let’s talk about the real issues,” said Psaki.
“I’m sure the President would never use those words,” Blitzer concluded.
Earlier on Tuesday, President Obama’s Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that the campaign is fine with Biden’s comments and said that the Romney campaign was engaging in “faux outrage” by calling the comments “not acceptable.”
Cutter issued a statement after her MSNBC appearance in which she also resorted to saying that Republicans ‘unshackling’ comments were equal to Biden’s comments insuinating that Republicans want to put people in chains:
For months, Speaker Boehner, Congressman Ryan, and other Republicans have called for the ‘unshackling’ of the private sector from regulations that protect Americans from risky financial deals and other reckless behavior that crashed our economy. Since then, the Vice President has often used a similar metaphor to describe the need to ‘unshackle’ the middle class. Today’s comments were a derivative of those remarks, describing the devastating impact letting Wall Street write its own rules again would have on middle class families. We find the Romney campaign’s outrage over the Vice President’s comments today hypocritical, particularly in light of their own candidate’s stump speech questioning the President’s patriotism. Now, let’s return to that ‘substantive’ debate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan promised 72 hours ago, but quickly abandoned.
Watch Psaki defend the Vice President below via CNN:
