CNN Contributor Rips Obama for Becoming Too ‘Scoldy’ for Democrats After He Tells Party To Stop ‘Whining’

New York Times and CNN contributor Lulu Garcia-Navarro argued former President Barack Obama is far too “scoldy” for today’s Democratic base after he told his party to quit “whining.”

Garcia-Navarro offered her less-than-stellar review of Obama’s Friday speech on Monday’s The Arena with Kasie Hunt. In his comments at a New Jersey fundraiser, the former president told Democrats they need less “whining” and “navel gazing.”

“I’ll also say from having read that speech that he gave, he was pretty scoldy. He is very scoldy these days, and he talked a lot about how people are not stepping up and doing their part, and how people have been folding and not really standing up tall. And I just don’t think that that goes down very well anymore,” Garcia-Navarro said of Obama.

She argued his political clout already showed some cracks in the 2024 presidential election as he tried drumming up support for former Vice President Kamala Harris.

“We saw that in the run up to the election, where he was sort of telling black men that they needed in solidarity to vote for a black woman,” she said. “And I think that that kind of scoldy Obama really doesn’t play to the Democratic base anymore.”

In his speech, Obama urged Democrats to do more, arguing the Republican Party and current administration have no “guardrails.”

“You know, don’t tell me you’re a Democrat, but you’re kind of disappointed right now, so you’re not doing anything,” he reportedly said. “No, now is exactly the time that you get in there and do something. Don’t say that you care deeply about free speech and then you’re quiet. No, you stand up for free speech when it’s hard. When somebody says something that you don’t like, but you still say, ‘You know what, that person has the right to speak.'”

Watch above via CNN.