Jen Psaki Says ‘Ultra-MAGA’ is ‘The President’s Phrase,’ But New Reporting Blames Six Months of Focus Groups For It

During her last week as press secretary, Jen Psaki sold the legend that Joe Biden invented the term “ultra-MAGA” because he wanted to tack “a little extra pop” onto his burns. But new reporting suggests it’s branding concocted by committee over a period of months. Or just plain borrowed.

Like “Big Lie” or “Don’t Say Gay” over the last year or two, the phrase “ultra-MAGA” – along with descriptors like “extreme MAGA” and more – went directly from a Democrats lips to the media’s ears and pens. It became ubiquitous seemingly overnight following President Biden uttering it out loud for the first time on May 4th.

“Let me tell you about this ultra-MAGA agenda. It’s extreme — as most MAGA things are,” said Biden in a fired-up speech about the leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court. “This MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that’s existed in American history — in recent American history.”

Biden repeated elements of those remarks several times that day in the days after, and messaging from the Democrats and the White House, in general, are embracing the use of MAGA in attacks on Republicans. And MAGA was immediately on board. Donald Trump and Steve Bannon quickly adopted and embraced it as the right on social media alternated between calling it a new “Deplorables” moment and praising it as a perfect sobriquet.

Jen Psaki has been asked about it more than once this past week or so. She was pressed by several reporters on Tuesday of this week after the term had begun to pop up all over, and attributed its provenance to the President’s creativity.

ABC News White House correspondent Mary Bruce asked, “Who came up with this phrase ‘Ultra-MAGA’? Why the need to kick it up a notch? MAGA wasn’t enough? I mean, why now use this phrase?”

“I will tell you, it is — it is the President’s phrase, said Psaki, “And the President made those comments himself just last week, as you know.”

She also said that “to him, adding a little ‘ultra’ to it, give it a little extra pop.”

Democrats like it. MAGA likes it. The media like it. But was it really an off-the-cuff effort? Not so much, judging by new reporting from Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer at the Washington Post.

They write:

Biden’s attempt to appropriate the “MAGA” brand as a political attack was hardly accidental. It arose from a six-month research project to find the best way to target Republicans, helmed by Biden adviser Anita Dunn and by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a liberal group.

The polling and focus group research by Hart Research and the Global Strategy Group found that “MAGA” was already viewed negatively by voters — more negatively than other phrases like “Trump Republicans.”

Hardly an organic utterance for added oomph. It seems more to be calculated effort ahead of the midterms, arrived at through months of research-mph.

The Washington Post further reports that it has been tied to Sen. Rick Scott:

Biden has repeatedly tied the term to Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who in February released a controversial 11-point policy plan. Its proposals include taxing many Americans who currently pay no taxes, as well as “sunsetting” all federal laws every five years, apparently including those authorizing Medicare and Social Security.

Although Scott’s plan been disavowed by some Republican leaders, Biden regularly describes it as the “MAGA agenda” of the “MAGA Republicans.” Since the Republican leadership has not offered any other plan, the White House argues, the public platform of its Senate campaign chief is fair game.

“I call it the ‘ultra-MAGA’ plan — Make America Great Again plan,” Biden said Wednesday, speaking to electrical workers in Chicago.

An interesting note. Parker and Scherer later refer to “Biden’s decision to dub Republicans as ‘ultra MAGA'” in the article. That decision may have been the result of Anita Dunn’s six-month research project. But it could have another influence, too.

In Biden’s May 4th speech, his first mention wasn’t as quip, it was more an attribution. Most articles quote the remark beginning, like it is typed above, with the words “let me tell you about this ultra-MAGA agenda.”

But he actually said this: “Senator Rick Scott of Florida, a United States senator who is leading the Republican National Senatorial Campaign Committee, released what he calls the ‘Ultra-MAGA Agenda.’ It’s a MAGA agenda all right. Let me tell you about this Ultra-MAGA Agenda. It’s extreme, as most MAGA things are.”

He’s attributing it to Rick Scott. And he’s not the first person to use it in that way. New York Magazine’s Intelligencer blog headlined an article on Scott’s agenda with the term a month ago.

There’s probably something to all of the above takes. Biden may think the ultra prefix “pops.” The use of MAGA in talking points and rhetoric as a means of categorizing and attacking opponents is almost certainly the product of a concerted, market-tested branding effort, and the term is exactly the sort of product such efforts usually come up with. You know, not materially different from any rando tweeting in anger.

And yes, it was used elsewhere before Joe Biden put it in a speech where he attributed it to Rick Scott. That’s politics.

But what it isn’t is something Biden invented to add oomph. That version, put out by Jen Psaki, is what you might call “ultra-wrong.”

Or, you know, that other popular phrase that gets used so much these days: “Mostly False.”

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.