On Tuesday’s broadcast of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” CNN Contributor and Democratic strategist Paul Begala said that the revelations about then-President Joe Biden’s mental fitness don’t impact the credibility of the Democratic Party at all and “I don’t think any Democrat who’s going to be facing voters in the midterms was at all complicit.” And there were “a whole bunch of politicians who understandably were rooting for him and hoping that he was doing fine, but they didn’t know.”
Co-host Mary Louise Kelly asked, “What does this mean to your party’s ability to hold President Trump, his administration, and Republicans accountable for policies, for actions you disagree with? Is your credibility shot is the gist of the question.”
Begala responded, “Not even dinged. Not a bit. I do think that members of the Biden team misled us. Every breath that Donald Trump takes is mendacious. And, just as a political strategist, we are 531 days from the midterm elections. We’ve got prices going up because of tariffs. We’ve got the biggest cut in Medicaid in the history of the country. It’s inconceivable that anybody will give a rip snort about Joe Biden’s health in 531 days when their own health care is being cut and their prices are going up.”
Kelly followed up, “You don’t see this as being damaging at all to Democrats who protected him, who will be facing voters in the midterms?”
Begala answered, “That’s correct. I don’t think any Democrat who’s going to be facing voters in the midterms was at all complicit. It seemed to me from the book to be a small handful of aides and then a whole bunch of politicians who understandably were rooting for him and hoping that he was doing fine, but they didn’t know. They didn’t see him every day, only about a half a dozen people did.”
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