Political strategist James Carville is back in the news again, this time for what he’s NOT allowed to say. According to Carville, Democrats are telling him to keep quiet about President Biden’s sinking poll numbers because they’d rather bury their heads in the sand than accept the reality that he’s just not that popular. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Political strategist James Carville is back in the news again, this time for what he’s not allowed to say, according to Carville, Democrats are telling him to keep his mouth shut. Don’t talk about Biden’s sinking poll numbers because they’d rather bury their head in the sand than listen to what Carville’s trying to tell ’em and that Biden is going to lose. That’s what Carville is saying. Every poll, there’s no outlier that says everything’s okay. Every one of ’em are saying Biden is going to lose. Right?
Farron Cousins: What we’re seeing right now is more and more saying that either we got a dead heat, Trump’s ahead by two points, Biden’s ahead by two points. But it is statistically a dead heat. The big problem, and listen, I don’t usually agree with James Carville. He’s not said a lot of things I’ve liked in the last 10 years.
Mike Papantonio: Me either.
Farron Cousins: Right. But, right here, he’s actually saying something that kind of gets to the heart of messages that we get in emails and angry phone calls.
Mike Papantonio: Oh God. We have to listen to it all the time.
Farron Cousins: And that is when people say, don’t talk about that. You’re helping the other side when talk about it.
Mike Papantonio: By talking about it.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: It’s childlike, isn’t it? It’s like a three year old that says, sticks their finger, nah nah nah. They don’t want to hear anything. Don’t talk about it because it upsets me. Rather than saying, maybe you should talk about it, because if you talk about it, we can adjust to the problem. We can get something done. It’s so childlike. We see it firsthand here all the time. Don’t we? This story, oh my God, they’re gonna, how dare you talk about the fact that Biden’s, that he’s in the tank or that Kamala Harris is in the tank. How dare you talk about it. You’re hurting us. No, we’re not hurting anybody. We’re trying to say there’s time for adjustment. Make a frigging adjustment.
Farron Cousins: Right. And the big thing that Carville’s pointing out is not just the head-to-head matchups. He says, listen, it’s that 37% approval rating. That’s what’s killer. George W. Bush had higher than a 37% approval rating.
Mike Papantonio: The statistics are, you can’t win with less than 40%. The historical, historically, you cannot win without 40%. So Carville, whether you like him or not, has been in this business a hell of a long time. And he’s saying, you know what? Something’s wrong here. I want to talk about it. How dare, how dare you DNC come to me and plead with me, please don’t talk about the bad stuff and direct me not to talk about the bad stuff and threaten him if he talks about the bad stuff. That’s how bad it is. They’re literally threatening the guy. He owns a, he’s got a lobby firm right now. They’re, you keep doing this, buddy, we’re gonna cut you off. Right?
Farron Cousins: Well, it’s like if the building’s on fire, but rather than addressing the fire, the Democrats are yelling at you to turn down the fire alarm because the noise is making ’em mad. They’re sitting around as everything burns around them, and they say that the alarm is making me angry. Don’t blare that alarm. But listen, I will say part of me is almost shocked at how bad Biden’s poll numbers are because every day I’m talking about all of the ridiculous insanity on the right. And it just blows my mind that people can see all of that dysfunction and still look at Biden and say, yeah, but he may be worse. That is a problem for this administration and they’re not addressing it.
Mike Papantonio: Well, look, it’s not just him. Dean Phillips is coming out and saying, you know, Dean Phillips now running. Everybody that’s running against him say, what the hell is it you’re not seeing? The guy is a train wreck. He’s a train wreck. Why can’t you see it? Instead, what we get when we say something like that, and people call, they literally call and say, how dare you do that? You’re killing the Democrats. No, we’re not killing the Democrats. We’re trying to tell the Democrats, pay attention here. Act like a freaking grownup rather than a child and do something about what’s happening. That’s all we’re doing. And that’s what Carville’s doing. Carville’s saying, I’m not out to get Biden. He’s just yesterday’s news. It’s time to move on to some new news now. That’s what he’s trying to say.
