Latest news with #Axelrod
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Axelrod: Ernst response to Medicaid remarks ‘insensitive,' ‘politically stupid'
Veteran political strategist David Axelrod knocked Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) on Monday for her sarcastic video response to backlash she faced over remarks about Medicaid cuts and death during a town hall last week. 'It was really insensitive of her to put that video up and politically stupid,' Axelrod said in a panel discussion with CNN's Jake Tapper. Ernst, a military veteran who has been in the Senate for more than a decade, posted a mock apology video on Instagram that showed her walking through a cemetery and discussing the backlash she faced from telling the Butler, Iowa crowd a day earlier, 'Well, we're all going to die' when an attendee yelled that people would die because of the Medicaid cuts in the House-approved version of President Trump's agenda-setting 'One Big, Beautiful Bill.' 'I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth,' Ernst said in the video. 'So I apologize, and I'm really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.' Axelrod, a chief political analyst at CNN and podcast host who was a top adviser to former President Obama, said Ernst 'probably could have gotten away' with her initial comments at the town hall as she made the case that the proposed Medicaid cuts are directed at people who should not receive benefits, including undocumented migrants and able-bodied adults who are not seeking employment. 'But putting up that spot the next day …' Axelrod said. 'When you take 10, you know, seven, eight, nine million people off of Medicaid, there will be people who will die. There will be people who are affected.' Conservative political commentator Scott Jennings, who also appeared on the panel, agreed that Ernst's video was not wise but said her initial message was sound. 'She had it right in the town hall meeting, and then she deviated at the end,' Jennings said. 'I wouldn't have posted the follow-up video myself, but I think the Republicans can actually win this debate.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
3 days ago
- Business
- The Hill
Axelrod: Ernst response to Medicaid remarks ‘insensitive,' ‘politically stupid'
Veteran political strategist David Axelrod knocked Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) on Monday for her sarcastic video response to backlash she faced over remarks about Medicaid cuts and death during a town hall last week. 'It was really insensitive of her to put that video up and politically stupid,' Axelrod said in a panel discussion with CNN's Jake Tapper. Ernst, a military veteran who has been in the Senate for more than a decade, posted a mock apology video on Instagram that showed her walking through a cemetery and discussing the backlash she faced from telling the Butler, Iowa crowd a day earlier, ' Well, we're all going to die ' when an attendee yelled that people would die because of the Medicaid cuts in the House-approved version of President Trump's agenda-setting ' One Big, Beautiful Bill.' 'I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth,' Ernst said in the video. 'So I apologize, and I'm really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.' Axelrod, a chief political analyst at CNN and podcast host who was a top adviser to former President Obama, said Ernst 'probably could have gotten away' with her initial comments at the town hall as she made the case that the proposed Medicaid cuts are directed at people who should not receive benefits, including undocumented migrants and able-bodied adults who are not seeking employment. 'But putting up that spot the next day …' Axelrod said. 'When you take 10, you know, seven, eight, nine million people off of Medicaid, there will be people who will die. There will be people who are affected.' Conservative political commentator Scott Jennings, who also appeared on the panel, agreed that Ernst's video was not wise but said her initial message was sound. 'She had it right in the town hall meeting, and then she deviated at the end,' Jennings said. 'I wouldn't have posted the follow-up video myself, but I think the Republicans can actually win this debate.'
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ex-Obama Adviser Spots Exactly How Trump Caught A Big Break With Tariff Decision
David Axelrod, ex-senior adviser to former President Barack Obama, on Wednesday said a federal trade court blocking President Donald Trump from imposing his sweeping tariffs may create 'a lot of havoc' in the short run but the ruling may 'save him from himself' in the long run. 'These tariffs are bad economic policy and these tariffs could raise costs on Americans,' Axelrod told CNN's Anderson Cooper before noting that some costs are already starting to rise as a result of the president's trade policy. 'So if the result of it is he's stymied in doing something that's going to raise costs for people, it may be a black eye but it may also be a break for him.' Axelrod's comments arrived hours after a three-judge panel ruled that Trump isn't authorized under an emergency-powers law to impose his sweeping taxes on imports, marking a blow to his 'Liberation Day' rollout that upset global financial markets and sparked trade wars including one with China. The ruling will likely be appealed by the White House and could fall before the Supreme Court. Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller reacted to the ruling by the U.S. Court of International Trade on social media by declaring that the 'judicial coup is out of control.' CNN legal expert Elie Honig stressed that the court is 'fully legitimate' and the panel is made up of judges appointed by Trump, Ronald Reagan and Obama. He described the ruling as a 'huge setback' for the administration and emphasized that the court found that Trump leaning on talk of trade deficits didn't constitute an economic 'emergency.' House Republican's Trump Talk Gets Not-So-Beautiful Response In Wild Town Hall Scene 'Slap In The Face!': Outgoing Capitol Police Chief Blasts Trump Over Jan. 6 Pardons Savannah Chrisley Reacts To Trump's Pardon Of Her Parents After Pushing For Their Release For Years
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Biden's chief of staff scolded Obama campaign architect for calling Biden's age an issue, book reveals
Former President Joe Biden's decision to run for re-election divided longtime Democratic advisors, a new book about Biden's cognitive decline and his administration's alleged cover-up revealed. Biden's former Chief of Staff, Ron Klain, shut down former President Barack Obama advisor David Axelrod for repeatedly calling Biden's age an issue. "The presidency is a monstrously taxing job and the stark reality is the president would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a second term, and that would be a major issue," Axelrod told The New York Times. Soon after the Times' story was published in June 2022, Klain called Axelrod fuming, CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson revealed in their book, "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again." Biden Struggled To Film 2024 Campaign Videos Amid Declining Health, New Book Claims: 'The Man Could Not Speak' "Who's going to beat Trump? President Biden is the only one who has done it. You better have a lot of certainty about a different candidate before you say the president should step aside. The future of the country depends on it!" Klain told Axelrod on the phone, according to Thompson and Tapper. Read On The Fox News App Fox News' Peter Doocy Reveals History Of Questioning Biden's Mental Fitness Klain believed it was "sloppy thinking" that anyone other than Biden could beat Trump, the journalists said in the book. But Axelrod, like most Americans, worried about the first octogenarian president's age and his ability to serve four more years. The chief strategist for Obama's back-to-back winning campaigns, Axelrod was one of the last advisers to meet with Biden before Obama chose him as his running mate in 2008. Axelrod told Tapper and Thompson that they didn't expect Biden to run for president at 73 and eventually discouraged Biden from running for president in 2015. They certainly didn't expect Biden to run for president at 77. After Axelrod made some friendly comments about Biden to a reporter in 2018, Biden invited him to his rental home in Virginia, according to the book. "He was stunned by how much Biden had aged," Tapper and Thompson wrote. Axelrod told Biden that age would be an issue for his campaign but encouraged him to lean on his experience and wisdom, the journalists said. Axelrod's apprehension about Biden's age only grew, and when it came time for Biden to make a decision about his re-election, he knew Biden shouldn't run in 2024. The longtime political advisor told Tapper and Thompson he wished someone in the White House had "come to their senses and [convinced] Biden and his family that this just wasn't tenable." Pointing to unfavorable battleground polls from 2023, Axelrod encouraged Biden to drop out of the race in a series of social media posts. He said the "stakes of miscalculation here are too dramatic to ignore." "Only @JoeBiden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it's in HIS best interest or the country's?" Axelrod questioned on social media. Klain fired back, this time for the public to see: "Man who called Biden 'Mr Magoo' in Aug 2019 is still at it," in reference to Axelrod's comments following the 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate. An excerpt from the book reads: "In response to Axelrod's 2023 post, Biden called Axelrod a 'prick' – a private insult until someone leaked it to Jonathan Martin of Politico. Axelrod received confidential messages of agreement from prominent Democrats who remained silent, they explained, because they were resigned to Biden's candidacy and did not want to weaken him as a looming rematch with Trump approached." Fox News Digital has written extensively, dating back to the 2020 presidential campaign, about Biden's cognitive decline and his inner circle's role in covering it up. "There is nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job, as the authors have alleged, nor did they prove their allegation that there was a cover-up or conspiracy," a Biden spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "Nowhere do they show that our national security was threatened or where the president wasn't otherwise engaged in the important matters of the presidency. In fact, Joe Biden was an effective president who led our country with empathy and skill."Original article source: Biden's chief of staff scolded Obama campaign architect for calling Biden's age an issue, book reveals
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Axelrod: Biden discussion should be ‘set aside' after cancer diagnosis
Political strategist David Axelrod on Sunday said discussions about President Biden's mental acuity and whether he should have exited last year's presidential race sooner should be 'set aside' as the former president deals with a prostate cancer diagnosis. 'I think those kinds of discussions are going to happen, but they should be more muted and set aside for now as he's sort of struggling through this,' Axelrod said on CNN not long after the news about Biden circulated. Biden, 82, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, his office announced Sunday. The diagnosis comes after a regular medical exam found a 'small nodule' on his prostate earlier this month. The finding 'necessitated further evaluation,' a spokesperson said. The news dropped as the former president has come under more and more criticism for the Democrats' loss to President Trump in November's presidential election. Biden dropped out of the race in July, paving the way for former Vice President Kamala Harris to run as the Democratic nominee. But a number of Democrats in recent weeks have argued that Biden should never have run for a second term, and that he bears responsibility for their party's loss by not removing himself from the race earlier. The arguments have been augmented by a series of books that have offered new insights into Biden's health last year. Axelrod, who served as an adviser to former President Obama, was among the Democrats who pushed for Biden to exit the presidential race after a rocky debate performance in June against Trump. 'There are certain immutable facts of life, and those were painfully obvious on that debate stage, and the president just doesn't seem to come to — he hasn't come to grips with it. He's not winning this race,' Axelrod told CNN in early July of last year. After Biden's loss, Axelrod said it was 'bulls‑‑‑' to say Biden would have won the race if he had stayed in it. 'I read a quote from an unnamed Biden aide saying, you know, the Obama people ran Biden out in 2016 and he would have beaten Trump, and they ran him out again this time,' Axelrod said at the time. 'And he would have beaten Trump again. Bulls‑‑‑.' Axelrod on Sunday expressed sadness and surprise at the news of Biden's prostate cancer. 'It shouldn't be stunning because prostate cancer is so common among men, at his stage in life, most men if they live long enough deal with prostate cancer,' he said. 'It's great news that they think it's manageable, but jarring nonetheless,' Axelrod added. Updated at 12:55 p.m. EDT Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
