Media top headlines January 17
In media news today, a Utah newspaper calls for the National Guard to prevent the unvaccinated from going anywhere, lawmakers call on NBC to cover human rights protests during the Winter Olympics in China, and CNN frets about Biden's press treatment.
Democratic strategist James Carville said Democrats "whine too much" and urged the party to gloat about accomplishments instead of focusing on the negative.
The Ragin' Cajun appeared on NBC News’ "Meet the Press" Sunday, where Chuck Todd said President Biden is having a tough time and pondered how Carville would "sell the good stuff" Biden has managed to accomplish to a nation that isn’t happy with his performance.
DEMOCRAT STRATEGIST JAMES CARVILLE: WHAT WENT WRONG IN VIRGINIA ELECTION WAS 'STUPID WOKENESS'
Democratic strategist James Carville said Democrats "whine too much" in an NBC interview. (Munoz for ICSS Livepic) (Getty Images)
"You gloat and you promote. You talk about the fact that, we pretend to care about child poverty… it’s the lowest child poverty rate we’ve had in history. We claim that we care about hourly workers. Hourly workers today have more leverage than any time we’ve had in my 77 years of existence on this planet, all right? You talk about we want jobs – 6.4 million jobs. More jobs than any president ever created in the first term," Carville said. "What you do, Chuck, is you run on what you got. You don’t run on what you didn’t get."
Carville then declared "the stuff you got is pretty good," and suggested Democrats focus on successes.
"You got to go out and you got to gloat and you got to promote … and if inflation is still at 7% this year in November we’ll lose anyway, but a lot of people don’t think that will be the case," Carville said.
Todd then reminded Carville that "nobody is happy" in the Biden coalition.
Last week alone, Biden gave a panned speech on his push to pass Democratic voting bills comparing opponents to segregationists, the Supreme Court blocked his mandate to force large employers to vaccinate or test their workers, and Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin, W. Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, Ariz., announced they wouldn’t vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster despite the president urging them to do so. In addition to the fizzling legislation and court defeat, polling shows the public’s approval of Biden’s job performance continues to crater as COVID surges despite his promise to "shut down" coronavirus.
"Progressives aren’t happy right now with how Build Back Better has gone, African-American activists are not happy with how voting rights has gone, and if you look at the polling, honestly, the thing that’s cratering the most are independents," Todd said. "You’re the president, what do you fix first?"
President Biden took heat from the liberal media last week. (AP) (AP Newsroom)
Carville claimed many Democrats simply have not been informed of Biden’s achievements, and the party needs to stop talking about what they didn’t accomplish.
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"Democrats whine too much, Chuck. Quit being a whiny party and get out there and fight," Carville said. "Soldier on … This is a tough, hard business."
Last year, Carville said "stupid wokeness" and the progressive agenda allowed Republican Glenn Youngkin to defeat Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia gubernatorial race. Youngkin took office on Saturday.