On Wednesday’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow reacted to the news that Vice President Joe Biden had decided to not run for president by touting how “universally beloved Joe Biden is as an American political figure.”
Maddow began her remarks by mocking Republicans and the "excitement about the prospect of a Biden candidacy...And the sort of savoring on the right of how the continued questions about whether or not Joe Biden was going to jump in sort of put Hillary Clinton in a spot and were an implicit undermining or an implicit question about her viability as a candidate.”
The liberal MSNBC host proceeded to drool over Biden’s legacy and how everyone in America supposedly loves him:
I've talked to Republicans as early, as recently as this morning, and Democrats and people who like the Obama administration and people who don't, and Joe Biden does not have an enemy in the world. And I don't know any other major political figure in my lifetime who has had such universal respect and just genuine personal affection.
Maddow wrapped up her over-the-top praise of Biden’s legacy by stressing that despite the frustration from Democrats over his delayed 2016 decision “people love him”:
[H]e may have caused some friction with the Clinton campaign in terms of how this process played out, ultimately I think long view, when you have a life-long history of earning people’s, not just respect, but affection, that’s ultimately what gets paid back to you. And I think this turns into something positive and uncontroversial about Joe Biden very, very quickly if only just because people love him.
See relevant transcript below.
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports
October 21, 2015
BRIAN WILLIAMS: And Rachel Maddow, you heard Andrea say there’s some broken eggs. This party, and the Republicans, both have to be in the omelet business quite shortly here to make a case for their nominees.
RACHEL MADDOW: Yeah, and it's been interesting to see on the right, and particularly in the conservative media, the excitement about the prospect of a Biden candidacy. And the sort of savoring on the right of how the continued questions about whether or not Joe Biden was going to jump in sort of put Hillary Clinton in a spot and were an implicit undermining or an implicit question about her viability as a candidate. So it will be interesting to see sort of what happens if that storyline collapsing in the conservative media and among the conservative candidates who’d really hyped this.
But, I think, to that point Andrea just made so well about the broken eggs here and how this has been difficult and it has gone on for a long time, the other thing that plays into that is how universally beloved Joe Biden is as an American political figure. And I say this, and granted, I'm a liberal and so people think this is me kissing up to the office of the vice presidency in some way, I don't know, but honestly, I've talked to Republicans as early, as recently as this morning, and Democrats and people who like the Obama administration and people who don't, and Joe Biden does not have an enemy in the world. And I don't know any other major political figure in my lifetime who has had such universal respect and just genuine personal affection.
And so while he may, as Ed Rendell says, try to be the enforcer for sticking to the Obama legacy and he may have caused some friction with the Clinton campaign in terms of how this process played out, ultimately I think long view, when you have a life-long history of earning people’s, not just respect, but affection, that’s ultimately what gets paid back to you. And I think this turns into something positive and uncontroversial about Joe Biden very, very quickly if only just because people love him.
