Biden Chief of Staff Klain Calls Out NYT For Hypocrisy After Editorial Pushes For a Moderate Agenda
Photo by DON EMMERT/AFP via Getty Images.
The New York Times ruffled feathers in the Democratic Party and the Biden administration on Thursday afternoon with a tough-love editorial warning that without a course correction the party risks “becoming a marginal Democratic Party appealing only to the left.”
Still reeling from Tuesday’s blowout in statewide races in Virginia and underperformance in New Jersey, the editorial highlights divisions in the party moving forward. On Wednesday evening, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) argued that Democrats lost in Virginia because they did not embrace the progressive base and ran a moderate campaign.
“Familiar takeaways like ‘wake-up call’ and ‘warning shot’ don’t do justice here,” was the Times‘ message to Democrats about how very dire Tuesdays’ elections were.
White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain’s reaction to the editorial is one of the most notable. Klain, responsible for shaping the president’s domestic agenda and one of the most influential members of the Biden administration, tweeted a quote from a New York Times editorial on January 19, 2019:
“His agenda tinkers at the edges of issues like health care and climate, and he emphasizes returning the country to where things were before the Trump era. But merely restoring the status quo will not get America where it needs to go as a society.”
NYT Editorial board, 1/19/20 https://t.co/CznWUu1UlY
— Ronald Klain (@WHCOS) November 5, 2021
A similar sentiment came from Huffington Post reporter Igor Bobic, who tweeted, “Remember when the NYT editorial board endorsed both [Elizabeth] Warren and [Amy] Klobuchar.”
Klain’s tweet was also a response to Sarah Longwell, the publisher of the conservative Never Trump publication The Bulwark, who quoted a key line from Thursday’s editorial:
“What would do justice, and what is badly needed, is an honest conversation in the Democratic Party about how to return to the moderate policies and values that fueled the blue-wave victories in 2018 and won Joe Biden the presidency in 2020”
Another Bulwark contributor, conservative author Mona Charen, wrote of the editorial, “Wow. This NYTimes editorial could have been ripped from the pages of The Bulwark!”
Deputy White House Press Secretary Andrew Bates responded:
.@nytopinion editorializing today that the Build Back Better agenda – which was a centerpiece of @POTUS‘s campaign and one they explicitly cited when endorsing him – somehow represents a leftward shift from what he *ran* on is self parody even beyond the genius of @DougJBalloon.
— Andrew Bates (@AndrewJBates46) November 5, 2021
Bates added that the editorial was, “So specifically and abjectly clueless.”
John Marshall from the Talking Points Memo went after the Times editorial board directly. He tweeted, “It’s amazing that you can get paid to have some basic familiarity with American politics and write an OpEd like this.”
While Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent responded by saying, “I call BS on the idea that Dem losses were caused by the BBB agenda straying too far left. This is entirely out of touch with how electoral politics works.”
On the other side of the political spectrum, RealClearPolitics’ Tom Bevan delighted by tweeting, “New York Times editorial board got red-pilled.”
New York Times editorial board got red-pilled. https://t.co/L6B1u7kjat pic.twitter.com/KV2qPiF1Um
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) November 5, 2021
