OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau criticized the Biden-Harris campaign’s rhetoric throughout the race and called President Joe Biden’s decision to run again a “catastrophic mistake.”
On the “Pod Save America” podcast, Favreau spoke about the election’s outcome with his fellow hosts, explaining that Biden kept praising the candidate’s historically robust economy and that “clearly, 70, 80% of voters don’t believe that.”
“Joe Biden’s decision to run for president again was a catastrophic mistake. It just was. He and his inner circle, they refused to believe the polls, they refused to believe he was unpopular, they refused to acknowledge until very late that anyone could be upset about inflation,” Favreau said during the podcast.
“And then after the debate, the Biden people told us that the polls were fine, and Biden was still the strongest candidate. They were privately telling reporters at the time that Kamala Harris couldn’t win. So they were shivving Kamala Harris to reporters while they told everyone else, ‘not a time for an open process,’” Favreau continued.
Favreau also pointed to the Biden campaign’s internal polling numbers showing that Donald Trump was going to handily defeat him.
“Then we find out when the Biden campaign becomes the Harris campaign, that the Biden campaign’s own internal polling at the time when they were telling us he was the strongest candidate, showed that Donald Trump was going to win 400 electoral votes,” Favreau added.
Throughout the contest, the president consistently rejected surveys that indicated he was lagging behind Donald Trump, the winner of the presidency. The president told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that pollsters told him the election was neck-and-neck before he decided to withdraw from it and after a poor debate performance.
“All pollsters I talk to tell me it’s a toss-up. And when I’m behind… there’s only one poll I’m really far behind, CBS poll and NBC, I mean, excuse me,” Biden said at the time.
Before the debate, “Pod Save America” co-host Tommy Vietor cited a number of instances in which the president failed during his campaign for Harris, citing polling that indicated voters believed Biden was too elderly for a second term.
