After it was reported that Joe Biden has called David Axelrod a “prick” for criticising his re-election efforts, the former Barack Obama adviser kicked back, saying the president should “get out or get going” in his campaign, most likely against Donald Trump.
Politico reported the president’s “prick” remark about Axelrod, sourcing it to “a person who has heard Biden use the word … in private”.
Speaking to CNN, Axelrod said: “Well, he wouldn’t be the first, I guess, in my many years in politics.
“I understand he was irritated because I raised concerns that many, many Democrats had. And again, you know, my feeling is either get out or get going. But the status quo, the way they were approaching the campaign, this sort of ‘What, me worry?’ attitude about the campaign, was not going to get him to where he needs to go.”
Polling shows Biden and Trump either neck-and-neck in battleground states or Trump – notwithstanding 91 pending criminal charges and assorted civil threats – in leads that would be enough to return him to power. Polling also shows more Americans think Biden is too old for a second term, at 80, than think so about Trump at 77.
Axelrod continued that Trump was not a Republican opponent like Mitt Romney or John McCain, whom Obama defeated in 2012 and 2008, respectively.
“This is Donald Trump,” Axelrod said. “It’s a fundamental question as to what American democracy is going to look like the day after the next election. So the stakes are very high.”
Trump has said he will weaponise the government to target opponents, also using the incendiary word “vermin” to describe those ranged against him.
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Biden, Axelrod said, knows how high the stakes are but “needs to take a sober look at the whole landscape. And yes, he’s committed to moving forward, I get that. He ought to then look at what his campaign is doing and what they need to do, and get out of this sort of referendum frame and go after Donald Trump every day, because Donald Trump will be the nominee of the Republican party.
“That may be uncomfortable for the president, but I will tell you a whole lot of people got in touch with me after I made my feelings known to say, ‘I’m glad someone said it,’ and if the end result of it is that they take a good hard look at their campaign and get it sort of turbocharged and turn it into a comparative race now, then I’m glad that I said it and can live with the fact that the president’s unhappy with me.”
The White House is also upset with Nate Silver, the pollster behind fivethirtyeight.com who said on Monday that Democrats were taking a “huge risk” by sticking with Biden.
“Democrats would be taking a huge risk by replacing Biden – but they’re also taking a huge risk by nominating him,” Silver wrote on Substack.
“If Biden can’t keep up with the schedule of a typical sitting president running for re-election, or is prone to making errors when he does, voters and the media are going to notice that and Biden will wear his 80+ years like an albatross around his neck.”
Biden’s campaign spokesperson, Kevin Muñoz, responded by harking back to Axelrod’s days at the centre of power.
“We are not going to take our cues from the same guy who mused whether two-term President Obama was ‘toast’ in 2011,” Muñoz said, referring to a famous piece Silver wrote for the New York Times.