In every joke, they say, is a grain of truth. I couldn’t help but think about that as I saw the former Biden White House Press Secretary giggle through her casual attempt to recruit President Obama’s campaign manager to come in and rescue the Biden campaign.
Watch as Psaki sets up the interview, and multiple attempts to draft Plouffe (mock or otherwise), with The Washington Post’s article on Obama’s concerns regarding the Biden campaign.
JEN PSAKI: So apparently, there was a big meeting recently between two of my former bosses, President Obama and President Biden. And in that meeting, which was first reported by The Washington Post, the two discussed concerns President Obama has about the strategy and operations of the Biden campaign. One source told the Post, quote, Obama grew animated in discussing the 2024 election and former President Donald Trump's potential return to power. The Post reports that Obama has told Biden aides that the campaign needs to move more aggressively, and he suggested that the campaign needs more top-level decision makers at its headquarters. According to the Post, he mentioned David Plouffe, his 2008 campaign manager, my former boss, as the type of senior strategist needed at the Biden campaign. Joining me now is of course David Plouffe, former campaign manager for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential race. Okay, Plouffe. I know, I know you've been telling people, probably including me, for a very long time that you are retired from active campaign work. But I think we can all agree we’re kind of in an existential moment here. So two presidents, hypothetically, ask you to return to campaign work, just for a little while, given how existential this is. Would you consider it?
DAVID PLOUFFE: Well- good try, Jen. No. Uh, first of all, I…
PSAKI: No, you would not!
There was over five and half minutes of this stuff, two Obama operatives just shooting the breeze, nerding out about campaign process, and reminiscing on the good old days of 2012. And people apparently watch this! Resist the urge to feel sympathy for me for watching the unwatchable: as Hyman Roth told Don Michael Corleone, this is the business we’ve chosen.
What you saw in the video clip was Paski’s first pass at drafting Plouffe. There was another, a variant of the old “so you’re telling me there’s a chance” plea. A not slamming the door on an advisory role. And a mention of “Plouffe stans”. Again, I can’t believe people watch this stuff.
Some might be quick to dismiss the “draft Plouffe” banter as Psaki trying to make light of both the reporting about Obama’s concerns with the campaign and Biden’s difficulty in maintaining his 2020 coalition. Nonetheless, it is jarring to see Psaki publicly undermine her old boss, especially after leveraging her prior service to her old boss into MSNBC airtime. Whether in jest or not. There is always a kernel of truth in every joke.
Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned segment as aired on MSNBC’s Inside With Jen Psaki on Monday, January 8th, 2024:
JEN PSAKI: So apparently, there was a big meeting recently between two of my former bosses, President Obama and President Biden. And in that meeting, which was first reported by The Washington Post, the two discussed concerns President Obama has about the strategy and operations of the Biden campaign. One source told the Post, quote, Obama grew animated in discussing the 2024 election and former President Donald Trump's potential return to power. The Post reports that Obama has told Biden aides that the campaign needs to move more aggressively, and he suggested that the campaign needs more top-level decision makers at its headquarters. According to the Post, he mentioned David Plouffe, his 2008 campaign manager, my former boss, as the type of senior strategist needed at the Biden campaign. Joining me now is of course David Plouffe, former campaign manager for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential race. Okay, Plouffe. I know, I know you've been telling people, probably including me, for a very long time that you are retired from active campaign work. But I think we can all agree we’re kind of in an existential moment here. So two presidents, hypothetically, ask you to return to campaign work, just for a little while, given how existential this is. Would you consider it?
DAVID PLOUFFE: Well- good try, Jen. No. Uh, first of all, I…
PSAKI: No, you would not!
PLOUFFE: Sometimes… Well, I obviously, you know, no surprise, I talked to a lot of my former colleagues who are involved in the effort and give whatever advice I can, however little that’s worth. You know, I think at the end of the day, listen, President Obama, who I can offer informed perspective on this, I think, has complete confidence in the team around Joe Biden because that team won the White House in 2020. And so my sense is, I think probably what’s driving, you know, some of the urgency is just that the stakes, obviously, are enormous. But, you know, the Republican primary could be wrapped up very soon, you know, within a couple of weeks. Maybe Nikki Haley will extend it if she wins New Hampshire. So the general election is gonna begin and you just gotta make sure everyone is in the right places. We went through this, as you know, heading into the re-elect in 2012. And studied the Bush reelect, the Clinton reelect, the Reagan reelect, George H.W. Bush’s reelect which I don’t think handled it well, which is I think there's a lesson there which is you want the campaign to be as fully empowered as possible. Obviously there needs to be coordination with the White House. But to move quickly, to make decisions, and politics is a lot different even now than it was four years ago. Platforms like TikTok, obviously, are a place where a lot of younger people but not just younger people get information. The tools available have changed a lot. So at the end of the day I think Joe Biden’s got the people around him who won the White House once. I think they can win it twice. But they just have to get everybody in the right seats.
PSAKI: For the Plouffe stans out there, which there are many, I’m not- I’m just gonna mark that as not a total door slam of you helping them, but maybe not in a formal role at this moment. But we’ll see. OK. So you’re still a pundit out there on the outside and you just outlined a lot of what they are doing. You are right, a lot of things have changed since you were traveling on the plane and I was traveling on the plane back in 2012 when President Obama was running for reelection. There have been some of these concerns expressed about the lack of senior decision-makers in Delaware and the lack of urgency around setting up national structures around that campaign. There is tons of time to go here, for anybody who is bed-wetting. But do you share those concerns? I mean, you said you are confident how they're going. But would you like to be faster? Would you like there to be more decision-makers, or different means of communicating on the campaign?
PLOUFFE: Well, you know, my sense, and obviously, I'm not in these rooms every day, right? But my sense is you see the schedules picking up. You know, they've got new advertising out. I think they are beginning to place people in the states. So that's all great. And I would remind everybody, and sometimes those of us who work in campaigns are afraid to say this. You know, campaigns matter around the margins. They are kind of a field goal unit, as our friend David Axelrod, Jen, used to say. Which is, they're not gonna turn 45% of the vote into 52% of the vote. But a great campaign may be able to get you a point or two. And this is likely to be a close race. So the campaign is not gonna change big things, how they handle things like, you know, age, the state of the economy, foreign policy crises, you know, does Donald Trump, you know, try to appeal to the middle, or does he continue to double down on the crazy? But I think the campaign is making strides. And what- it's important to remind everyone what is the campaign in a presidential race? Well, in this particular presidential race in 2024, it’s six, maybe seven states, probably a couple of million total between swing voters and people that you are concerned about either not turning out or perhaps voting third-party, which I think could be a factor in this race. So those are where the campaign really matters and can make a big difference. But the big things, how you handle those debates, you know, does Joe Biden convince people, you know, he's up to this job, which I think he clearly is. But there’s people that need convincing. Can you make Donald Trump pay the full price for things like abortion, for his desire to be an autocrat, or his economic policies that are all about helping the rich and screwing the workers. A campaign can help there. But some of those big pieces I think, you know, are gonna be subject, particularly things like foreign policy and the economy, they're not in control of, the campaign. But as you know, in ‘12 we did a very good job of determining what the economic debate we were gonna have with Mitt Romney was. And we really focused on who was best for the middle class. And by the way, that's a debate I think Joe Biden is really well positioned, as you know well, to win.
PSAKI: Yeah. The “who you are fighting for” debate, which is less about data and more about how people feel and the president gave two big speeches on democracy. So a lot for people to work with. David Plouffe, thank you as always.
