MSNBC Guest Compares Concerns Over Biden’s Age to Racism and Sexism: ‘Ask African Americans’ and ‘Women’
Democratic strategist Chai Komanduri compared concerns over President Joe Biden’s age to the discrimination that African Americans and women have experienced during a Friday appearance on MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber.
Asked by host Ari Melber about Biden’s low approval ratings, Komanduri – who has worked for the Democratic National Committee and on presidential campaigns for both former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – said, “Biden I think encapsulates it best with his slogan when he says, ‘Don’t compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative.’ That’s what this election will be about. I don’t think there’s a slogan by a presidential candidate that has better encapsulated the reasons why you would pull the lever for him.”
“Let’s talk about it honestly, ok? He is old. Age is an issue,” Komanduri acknowledged, adding, however, that “Americans have a rich history of holding people’s physical characteristics against them.”
“You can ask African Americans, you can ask women. That is a fact. That is a problem. That is something that we are definitely going to have to fight on and something Democrats are definitely going to have to address head on,” he said. “I think Joe Biden has definitely done that.”
Melber replied, “I think it’s funny you mention the age thing that way, that you can put it in the context of other discrimination like ageism, and yet yes, like Reagan, Biden’s going to be upfront about it. He’s spoken about it. It does make for what could be a very interesting period of time.”
Biden, who will turn 82 years old just after the 2024 presidential election, has received low approval ratings in the polls following his first term as president and many Democrats have expressed opposition to him receiving the Democratic Party nomination. An April poll from NBC News found that 70 percent of Americans did not Biden to receive another term in the White House.
Watch above via MSNBC.
