Anderson Cooper: It’s ‘Incredibly Damaging’ for Biden That ‘Members of His Own Party Are Kind of Ignoring Him’

Anderson Cooper, Maggie Haberman, and David Axelrod talked Friday night about how the months of negotiations over legislation have hurt Democrats, particularly in the wake of recent election losses.

Democrats have been scrambling to get votes on the bipartisan infrastructure package and the Build Back Better spending bill for months now, and as of this posting there may be a vote tonight on the former if a deal between progressives and moderates is worked out.

Cooper asked Haberman, “How much trouble are Democrats making for themselves tonight?”

“This is problematic,” Haberman said. “I don’t know how the average voter understands any of this…. All they can see is that something is not getting done.”

She argued that nothing getting done “is having a competency message for this White House” and said had the Democrats acted sooner, it “would have helped them more” than getting it passed now would.

Axelrod agreed “this is not a good look for the party in power” and said it would be good for the Democrats and President Joe Biden to actually get these bills passed and explain to Americans what’s in them.

“The more they haggle about procedure and have intramural spats, the longer it will be before they can actually get to talking about what’s in the bill and what they’ve done for the American people,” he added.

Axelrod expressed surprise that Biden could ask members of his own party for his vote and “there are members who are unwilling to do that right now.”

Cooper remarked, “It’s incredibly damaging for the president, not only for, you know, political capital, but just that members of his own party are kind of ignoring him.”

“It looks ineffective,” Haberman agreed.

You can watch the discussion above, via CNN.