Category Archives: CNN

Ex-Obama Adviser Snidely Boils Down Harris Defeat To 1 Faction Of Democratic Party

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David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Barack Obama during his presidency, on Thursday said Democrats have “become a smarty-pants, suburban, college-educated party” ― and that led to Kamala Harris’ defeat in the White House race.

Many pundits have been upping their blame game in the aftermath of the 2024 election. But analysis from Axelrod, a strategist who successfully helped engineer both of Obama’s national campaigns, merits attention.

“I do have concerns about the way the Democratic Party relates to working-class voters in this country,” Axelrod told broadcaster Anderson Cooper on CNN. “The only group that Democrats gained with in the election on Tuesday was white college graduates. And among working-class voters, there was a significant decline.”

He continued to hammer home a point about the more affluent income bracket that Harris appealed to.

“The only group … Democrats won among were people who make more than $100,000 a year,” Axelrod said. “You can’t win national elections that way, and it certainly shouldn’t be that way for a party that fashions itself as the party of working people.”

Axelrod suggested snobbery played a part in Democrats’ failed messaging after President Joe Biden had helped working people.

“You can’t approach working people like missionaries and say, ‘We’re here to help you become more like us.’ There’s a kind of unspoken disdain, unintended disdain in that,” he said.

“I think Biden has done programmatically some good things for working people. But the party itself has increasingly become a smarty-pants, suburban, college-educated party, and it lends itself to the kind of backlash that we’ve seen.”

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), a Harris campaign co-chair, somewhat echoed Axelrod’s point in a separate conversation on CNN.

“There’s a lot of work to do to ensure that we communicate to folks that the Democratic Party is the party of working people, is the party that supports immigrants, is the party that supports the social safety net,” Garcia said.

H/T Mediaite

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Anthony Scaramucci Spots The ‘Total Dog Whistle’ In Trump’s ‘Poisoning The Blood’ Rant

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Anthony Scaramucci took aim at Donald Trump’s recent “poisoning the blood” remarks on Friday and told CNN that the former president’s anti-immigrant rant was a “total dog whistle.”

Scaramucci, a frequent Trump critic since his brief stint in the White House, weighed in on his ex-boss’ xenophobic comments which have been condemned for echoing the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler.

“He knows exactly what he’s doing,” said Scaramucci when asked by CNN’s Abby Phillip why Trump keeps saying a phrase “lifted” from the Nazi leader.

“He puts things out there, sort of with a forked tongue. He’ll say one thing and say, ‘Oh geez, I didn’t realize that that was from that,’ but he does know that it’s from that.”

Trump has since claimed that he’s “never read ’Mein Kampf’” and, on Friday, declared that he’s “not a student of Hitler.”

The claim conflicts with a 1990 Vanity Fair story that described Ivana Trump – the former president’s first wife – noting that her then-husband read a book of Hitler’s collected speeches and kept it “in a cabinet by his bed.”

Scaramucci told Phillip that someone wrote the “poisoning the blood” speech for the former president knowing that “Hitler said it.”

“I do believe him that he has not read ‘Mein Kampf,’ OK, because I don’t think this guy has ever read a book … The joke on the campaign is that he’s written more books than he read,” he said.

H/T: Mediaite

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Chris Christie Taunts Trump With The ‘One Thing He Cannot Stand’

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Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie boasted that he’s living “rent-free” inside Donald Trump’s head after the former president launched another attack on him.

Trump on Tuesday fired off a rant on his Truth Social website saying Christie “SHOULD DROP OUT OF THE RACE.”

Christie, one of a number of candidates running against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, said that won’t happen.

“He only wishes I was going away,” Christie said, saying Trump was “obviously” watching as he criticised the former president on TV when he posted that message.

“I was laying out the truth about him,” Christie said, saying the “one thing he cannot stand” is when someone credible calls him out.

“He knows I’m not just some politician talking about his problems. I’m someone who’s done it, and done it well,” Christie said, noting his 130 wins and zero losses in prosecuting political corruption cases when he was a U.S. attorney.

“I know how deep his problems are, and how much they’re damaging both the Republican Party and the country,” Christie said. “I’m not getting out this race. Maybe he should think about getting out of the race since he’ll be spending most of March and half of April in a courtroom in Washington, DC.”

That’s a reference to the March 4 start of Trump’s election interference trial, one of four criminal cases against the former president.

Christie is polling in the low-to-mid single digits, far behind Trump and behind a number of other candidates such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, political newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy and former United States Ambassador Nikki Haley.

Yet the former president seems to devote outsized attention to Christie, frequently responding to his TV appearances by attacking him on social media despite the fact that the two were once close allies.

In 2016, Christie became one of the first prominent Republicans to endorse Trump, and remained a loyal insider for the duration of Trump’s presidency, but turned into a critic afterward.

See his full conversation with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins below:

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John Bolton Has A 4-Letter Word To Describe Trump’s Mug Shot

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John Bolton didn’t hesitate when asked to describe Donald Trump’s glowering mug shot, released after the former president was booked on Thursday in the Georgia election interference case.

“He could’ve smiled. He could’ve looked benign,” Bolton said on CNN. “Instead he looks like a thug.”

Donald Trump's booking photo, taken at the Fulton County Jail on August 24, 2023. (Photo by Fulton County Sheriff's Office via Getty Images)
Donald Trump’s booking photo, taken at the Fulton County Jail on August 24, 2023. (Photo by Fulton County Sheriff’s Office via Getty Images)

Handout via Getty Images

Bolton, who served as national security advisor under Trump, said the image was likely carefully staged, as most things are around Trump.

“I think it’s intended to be a sign of intimidation against the prosecutors and the judges,” he said.

Bolton also had harsh words for most of the other Republicans seeking the presidential nomination after six of eight participants in Wednesday night’s debate said they would support Trump if he wins the primary even if he’s convicted.

“I think there were six wrong answers and two right answers,” Bolton said. “You cannot believe in a law-and-order philosophy and say it applies to everybody except Donald Trump.”

He added: “In any sane society, somebody who’s a convicted felon should step aside.”

Bolton said the Republican National Committee should have a rule forcing a convicted candidate off the ticket.

Like many who served under Trump, Bolton released a tell-all book bashing his former boss and has made regular appearances in the media speaking out against the ex-president.

Trump has fired back by calling him a “liar,” a “dope” and a “sick puppy.”

Bolton has said in the past that he voted for Trump in 2016, but not in 2020, when he wrote in the name of a conservative candidate instead. He added that he would do the same next year if Trump is the Republican nominee.

See the full conversation below:

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