CNN’s Jess McIntosh Pushes Back on David Axelrod’s Mansplaining of Elizabeth Warren’s Debate Performance
CNN commentator and former Hillary Clinton senior aide Jess McIntosh very sweetly corrected CNN analyst and former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod when he interrupted to explain why Tom Steyer got more talking time during Friday night’s ABC News Democratic presidential debate that Elizabeth Warren.
During CNN’s post-debate coverage Friday night, CNN analyst Van Jones praised Warren’s performance, saying “Warren tonight did the whole thing, she did it well, she made no mistakes, I think she’s probably going to get the least attention but she deserves the most.”
“She did a uniquely female thing, which was that she did more with considerably less,” McIntosh said once Jones had finished speaking. “By the last counts that I saw of speaking time, she was coming in at about 50% of what Biden, who came in after her in Iowa, got.”
“This is the third place candidate coming out of Iowa, and usually we consider the third place candidate out of Iowa very much still in the race, especially in a race this fluid,” she continued, adding “We’re considering a man who has yet to receive any votes or be held accountable on any national stage as very much a part of this race, so the idea that Elizabeth Warren would be erased, especially after a night where she put in another A-game performance on gun violence prevention, on reproductive freedom, on race, I think it would be a mistake to write her off.”
As Mcintosh was finishing her sentence, though, Axelrod interrupted to say “So Tom Steyer got more time than she did, and you know why Tom Steyer got more time than he did? Because he demanded it.”
“She had her hand up and if she had jumped in she would have been called out for being too much of a bully,” Mcintosh said, as Axelrod talked over her.
“And and and and, I think here’s the problem for, here’s the problem for her,” Axelrod said — as McIntosh wordlessly commonicated volumes in the two-box — and added “We haven’t mentioned Bernie Sanders yet, Bernie Sanders is an extraordinarily consistent performer, and you know he speaks with great moral conviction, we’ve heard it all before, but the fact that we’ve heard it all before adds some authenticity to it.”
“All of those guys were yelling so much, it was like they were trying to prove that there was a double standard between how women are allowed to present themselves in debates and men are, and if she had jumped in like Steyer did, I think we’d be talking about how she pushed it too far tonight,” McIntosh said.
McIntosh was correct that Biden outpaced Warren in speaking time at the debate, and Axelrod was incorrect, Steyer — while he may have been aggressive — finished several minutes behind Warren in total talk time.
Watch the clip above via CNN.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
