A top Democratic adviser and Biden cheerleader is urging the White House to shift its focus away from the president’s dismal debate performance and to the antics and policies voters dislike about former President Donald Trump.
“We need to make this election a referendum on Trump, not Joe Biden,” said Simon Rosenberg, an influential progressive organizer and ally to the president and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA).
“It’s why [we] have to keep talking about Trump’s bat s*** crazy debate performance and the threat he is to all of us. As you plan your own public engagements and discussion with others keep this in mind at all times,” he said in an email and blog post to his network.
Rosenberg didn’t write off Biden’s debate disaster but said the campaign and supporters must move on behind the president. He did, however, ask for a promise that the president will be better prepared in the future.
“Yes we need to hear from Joe Biden and the campaign in the coming days about why Thursday night went so wrong, and what can be done to ensure such terrible events don’t happen again. They need some time to discuss internally and come together around a new strategy,” he wrote.
Biden aides initially put out excuses for the president’s lost appearance at the debate and bewildering responses to some of the questions. But now they are trying to shift in hopes that the intraparty hand-wringing is over.
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Rosenberg, who has often been in the lead of laying out tactics for the Democrat, said turning the debate back to Trump and MAGA can be a winner.
“Fear and opposition to MAGA has been the driving force of our politics since 2018, and is likely to be again this year — for it is the most issue in our politics today, far more powerful than disappointment in Joe Biden and the Democrats,” he wrote.
