Joe Scarborough, co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” knocked Democratic strategist David Axelrod on Wednesday for continuing to criticize President Biden publicly — as the president maintains he’s committed to staying in the race.
Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski in their newscast rebuked Biden’s critics and defended the president for occasionally stumbling over his words.
“He confused a word or two,” Scarborough said about Biden’s remarks on Sunday, adding that these small flubs happen all the time to everyone — even apparently to Axelrod, who, Scarborough noted, seemed to mix up two names while criticizing Biden for doing something similar.
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“By the way, it’s very funny. David Axelrod, a couple nights ago, was going through when Joe Biden spoke on Sunday night, he cut a word off,” Scarborough said. “And David Axelrod, of course, had to bring that up.”
“And then got someone’s name wrong,” Brzezinski interjected.
“And then gets somebody’s name wrong,” Scarborough repeated. “So does David Axelrod need to get off of TV? I mean, this happens. Media people keep going, ‘Oh, Joe Biden confused names.’ Then they throw to somebody, and they confuse the name.”
“We know we do that,” Brzezinski said.
“We do a lot,” Scarborough added.
Axelrod, who served as White House senior adviser to then-President Obama, has been a prominent voice among Democrats calling for the president to step aside and let someone else take his spot atop the Democratic ticket.
Scarborough has long been one of Biden’s fiercest defenders, but after Biden’s difficult debate performance, the pundit publicly raised doubts that Biden could win reelection. He also criticized the president’s performance, saying, “Donald Trump lied over and over and over and over again, and Joe Biden couldn’t respond to any of those lies.”
“We’ve been asking, ‘Why is this race close? We have no idea why this race is close.’ We saw last night why this race has been close, and why I fear Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States, unless things change,” Scarborough said on his show, the morning after the debate.
Scarborough acknowledged he aired those concerns in the immediate aftermath of the debate but said the moment for such a change has passed.
“The day after the debate, I said he needed to consider stepping down. I said, let’s wait a couple days, see what happens, see where this goes,” Scarborough said, adding that the polls have not moved significantly in the last few weeks, despite Biden’s poor debate performance and despite the pressure from “elitist billionaires” and public figures to drop out.
“Call all the most powerful people, in politics, in the media, and try to push the guy off the ticket. You can do that. You’ve been trying to do it now for three weeks. It’s not working. He’s saying he’s not going anywhere. And if you look at the poll numbers, the people who actually answer these polls,” Scarborough said. “Those people are saying, ‘You know what? We’re good with a guy from Delaware. We’re good for with the state-school guy. We’re good.’ That’s what they’re saying right now.”