‘Give me a break’: Black Democrats sound off on Biden press conference and gaffes
“We can continue to focus on a stutter, or a pause, or a gaffe, or we can actually focus on trying to ... save democracy so that Black folk can actually have a country and society to live in," Michael Blake, Democratic strategist, told theGrio.
Following President Joe Biden’s 50-minute press conference Thursday night, where he fielded a range of questions from the White House press corps on foreign policy and national security concerns, Black Democrats say they’re committed to supporting Biden’s reelection campaign.
“I am all in. I’m riding with Biden no matter what direction he goes, no matter what method he takes. I’m with Joe Biden,” U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., a close Biden confidant, told NBC’s “TODAY” show.
Clyburn, credited for saving Biden’s 2020 campaign with a crucial endorsement, defended the president’s gaffes on Thursday when he mistakenly called Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “President Putin” and later during the press conference called Vice President Kamala Harris “Vice President Trump.”
The senior South Carolina congressman argued that Biden’s slip-ups are a result of his childhood stuttering, which has affected his adulthood speech.
“We do know that he sometimes mangles words and phrases, but all of that is almost natural for people who grew up stuttering,” said Clyburn, who said despite his misspeaking, the president “has one of the best minds that I’ve ever been around.”
“The people who’ve been around him will tell you that,” he continued. “I would hope that we will focus on the substance of this man, rather than … sometimes the misspoken words and phrases.”
Chris Walton, a Wisconsin Biden delegate at this year’s Democratic National Convention, told theGrio that Biden’s tendency to mix up his words is nothing new and dates back years.
“Joe Biden called Barack Obama ‘Barack America’ when he was announced as VP … this is who Joe Biden is,” he said. “I think it’s overblown.”
Walton and other Democrats who spoke with theGrio say they are less concerned about Biden’s age and more perturbed by the fact that Donald Trump remains the Republican Party’s presidential nominee.
“You have a compulsive liar, a serial sex offender, a 34-time convicted felon who wants to literally overthrow democracy – but [Biden’s] old. Give me a break,” said Walton, who previously served as chairman of the Milwaukee County Democratic Party.
Michael Blake, former vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, described any Biden’s gaffe as an “innocent mistake,” telling theGrio, “The bigger mistake would be Donald Trump winning.”
The Democratic strategist continued, “We can continue to focus on a stutter, or a pause, or a gaffe, or we can actually focus on trying to win an election, so we save democracy [and] so that Black folk can actually have a country and society to live in.”
Don Scott, Virginia’s first Black Speaker of the House of Delegates, told theGrio that his “biggest fear” about the chatter around Biden’s age and fitness is that it could create an “apathy” among voters and push a false narrative that the two major political parties are “alike.”
“We’re not all alike. There is one party, the MAGA Party, that doesn’t like Black folk. That doesn’t want us to be in the room,” said Speaker Scott. “They only want people who think like them, who want to deny the legacy of racism and slavery in America.”
He added, “The fact that they hate the word diversity. The fact that they hate the word equity … that tells you a lot about who they are.”
The Virginia Democratic leader said that “at the end of the day, this is not about Joe Biden,” maintaining, “This is about how terrible Donald Trump will be.”
Democrats say Trump’s criminal cases and his vows to use the power of the presidency to seek “retribution” on his political enemies, among other policy proposals connected to a potential second Trump administration, should be disqualifying to voters.
“[Biden] may be older, [but] Trump’s a compulsive liar,” said Walton, the Wisconsin delegate. “This one is a threat to democracy. This one wants to put Project 2025 in place … it’s not comparable.”
Despite more than a dozen Democrats in Congress calling for Biden to not seek reelection in fear he’ll lose to Trump on Nov. 5, most Black Democrats have publicly defended him. One exception is U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York, who called Biden staying in the race a “political suicide mission” for the party.
Blake, a former New York assemblyman, said he thought it was “outrageous” that Torres broke from fellow members of the Congressional Black Caucus to “come out against” President Biden.
“Ritchie Torres continues to show people that he does not actually want to collaborate with the Black community,” he argued. Noting that a majority of Black voters agree with CBC leaders in their support for Biden, Blake added, “Maybe Ritchie Torres should remember that.”
Blake said Democrats should be more focused on economic and social issues important to voters. His organization, Kairos Democracy Project, is set to release key data about Biden 2020 voters in battleground states with the Democratic polling firm, brilliant corners. The survey found that after abortion and reproductive rights, Biden voters are most concerned about Social Security and Medicare and voting rights.
“The coalition of voters that will determine if President Biden gets reelected want us to focus on jobs and Social Security and democracy. They don’t want us focusing on gaffes,” said Blake.
He lamented that for two weeks, the news media and political insiders have focused on how Biden “looked and sounded” rather than Trump, who lied at least more than 30 times during the June 27 presidential debate.
“Media has not at all had the same energy of getting people to pay attention to what Donald Trump said,” Blake explained, “as opposed to benefiting off of the chaos and the energy of what happened to President Biden, which fundamentally is based upon the fear of Trump winning.”
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He added, “I would rather we spend more time directly and daily asking Donald Trump what do you mean by a Black job, as opposed to people spending their time at their jobs and gossiping about Joe Biden.”
Despite the attention on President Biden’s gaffes before and during Thursday’s press conference, most Democrats were pleased with his performance.
Walton, who vowed to still cast his delegate vote for Biden at the Chicago convention, said the president demonstrated his command on foreign policy.
“He could give you a whole college-level dissertation on foreign policy, while Donald Trump literally just admitted he didn’t know what NATO was until he became president,” he said. “Biden has been the chair of the [Senate] Foreign Relations Committee. He was the vice president of the United States for eight years. He’s been president for the last three and a half years.”
Speaker Scott said, ultimately, the Democratic Party is “healthy enough to withstand” the strength test of Biden’s candidacy.
“Unlike the MAGA Republican Party, they’re a cult … Donald Trump would punish them if they did, and no one breaks ranks over there,” he argued. “No one questions him even in the face of some of the most hideous and terrible things that he said and done.”
Scott added, “There is no debate that Joe Biden is a hundred times better.”
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