CNN’s Van Jones On Dem Worries About Biden: ‘Would You Give This Grandpa a High-Stress Job for Six More Years?’
A new CNN poll is the bearer of bad news for President Joe Biden, showing a slip in his approval rating to 39 percent and growing concerns about his age. While some say that a poll this early in the 2024 presidential race is merely a snapshot, Biden is only going to get older, and CNN’s Van Jones isn’t keen on seeing someone’s grandpa in a “high-stress job.”
The polls were a topic of discussion on Thursday’s edition of CNN This Morning, and anchors Poppy Harlow and Phil Mattingly welcomed Jim Messina, former deputy chief of staff to former President Barack Obama, and commentator Jones to share their perspectives. While Messina tried to calm Democratic anxieties about bad polls (telling Politico Playbook, “Historically, we are fucking bedwetters”), Harlow still had doubts and turned to Jones:
HARLOW: And yet, Van Jones, can I take you to our backyard barbecue table in Minnesota on Saturday night with our friends who are saying this hearing from many people, from many different walks of life, that many are not feeling that data. What Jim is saying is true, but they’re not living it. They’re not feeling it. And there are liberals who are saying to me, “You know, I’m thinking about Nikki Haley a lot.” And I just wonder what you think about that, Van, as you try to figure out why those facts that are good for Biden are not translating in these polls.
JONES: If Jim Messina says that we’re bedwetters, invest in Pampers and Depends because a lot of people are terrified that Joe Biden is in real trouble and that you can’t talk about it. So that’s what’s going on.
Listen, Jim is right. Anybody who wants to argue against Jim Messina is going to waste their time. He’s got to have the right numbers, the right data, and it may, in fact, be true that a year from now things look very different because there’s been a year of a real campaign, and all this kind of stuff.
But right now, today, I think a lot of Democrats look at these numbers and say the whispers are finally showing up in this data. People are talking behind their hand. They worry about Joe Biden. Joe Biden’s like that grandpa that you love, that you believe in. You owe a lot. But you start to wonder, you know, would you give this grandpa a high-stress job for six more years or would you want something else for him?
But Jones did give Biden — and Messina — a bit of the benefit of the doubt, adding:
I think is maybe the bottom for Joe Biden. He may go up as the economy improves, but right now, the economy is getting better and fears about the economy are getting worse. We’ve got to be honest as Democrats that there’s real pain out there at the base of our party. People still don’t feel these policies yet, and we’re gonna have to make the case stronger. We can’t just say, hey, don’t worry about it. We have to make a stronger case for for the help that’s on the way than we have so far.
Watch the video above via CNN.
