MSNBC host Joy Reid shared concerns she was hearing from “Obamaworld people” and Democratic campaign operatives following the CNN presidential debate in Atlanta.
“I was on the phone throughout much of the debate with Obamaworld people, with Democrats, with people who are political operatives, and with campaign operatives. My phone really never stopped buzzing throughout. And the universal reaction was somewhere approaching panic,” Reid said Thursday night during post-debate coverage.
She added, “The people who were texting with me were very concerned about President Biden seeming extremely feeble, seeming extremely weak.”
The MSNBC host analyzed that the president had “one job” during the debate and it was to “reassure” Democrats.
“He did not do that. He did the opposite of that. He made them more panicked. The people who were texting me were even more panicked,” Reid said. “They actually expected it to be better than it was, and now they are in, I will not say a full-fledged panic, but it is getting there.”
Other MSNBC journalists also shared what they were hearing from Democratic campaign operatives.
MSNBC’s Alex Wagner shared what she was hearing in the spin room following the debate.
“There is been a uniformly negative reaction to Biden’s performance tonight. … His answers were rambling and incoherent,” Wagner said. “It is confounding.”
Over on CNN, anchor Kasie Hunt shared a brutal assessment of Biden’s performance.
“The voice, open-mouthed look, and visual contrast between President Biden and former President Trump all have Democrats I’m talking to nearly beside themselves watching this debate,” she said.
Former Obama 2008 presidential campaign manager David Plouffe said the reaction to the debate was a “DEFCON 1 moment.”
“They [Trump and Biden] are three years apart, but they seemed about 30 years apart tonight. I think that will be the thing that voters will really wrestle with,” Plouffe said.
MSNBC host and former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki said it was “not the debate performance that they wanted or needed for this debate.”
She shared that the “biggest challenge” following the debate is “how distracting all of the chatter is going to be.”
“I am getting texts and emails about whether he should be replaced. That chatter is happening. People are asking questions,” Psaki said on the post-debate panel.
Meanwhile, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) shot down criticism of Biden’s debate performance.
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“We have to go in and keep our heads high and have the back of this president. You do not turn your back because of one performance. What kind of party does that?” the California governor told MSNBC.
He added, “This president has delivered. We need to deliver for him at this moment. The more time we start having these conversations and go down these rabbit holes, it’s unhelpful to our fate and future of the country in the world. They need us right now to step up, and that is what I intend to do.”
