Former top Biden adviser Anita Dunn is taking aim at Democratic Party leadership, as well as the mainstream news media, in a striking interview in which she accused them both of “horrible” attacks against the still-sitting President Biden.
Dunn, who recently left the White House to join the Harris campaign, spoke to Politico about the fallout from the disastrous presidential debate this summer, in which Biden stumbled through a number of answers and which ultimately led to him being replaced on the ticket by Vice President Kamala Harris.
Dunn said the debate itself wasn’t that bad, it was what followed that would be critical.
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“So [former President] Trump didn’t gain any ground in the debate whatsoever. And we actually picked up a few votes in the group. So it was a bad debate, but it didn’t feel catastrophic at all, certainly in terms of voters,” she said.
“And I think other people who did independent research saw roughly the same thing. If you go back and you look at the polls, what you will see is you didn’t see much movement whatsoever coming out of the debate because the structure of this campaign had been fairly static for a long time, and the debate didn’t change that.”
Anita Dunn, senior adviser to President Biden, center, and White House Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs Reema Dodin, right, arrive for a lunch meeting with Senate Democrats at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on July 22, 2021. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“What did change it was 24 days of unremitting negative, horrible attacks on Joe Biden,” she said.
When asked to clarify who those attacks came from, Dunn pulled no punches: “From his own party and from the press.”
She also said that after that debate there was a press atmosphere that was “just unremittingly negative” and was made worse by leaders of the party speaking out.
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“Clearly there were leaders of the party who decided to go ahead and go very public. And that gave permission to other people to go public,” she said.
Dunn was asked if an example of that was when former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., went on TV twice in the days after the debate.
“Absolutely,” she said.
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Dunn later side-stepped a question about whether Biden is still angry at Pelosi, as well as former President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. — while also taking another swipe at some in leadership.
“The task in front of us is to win this election and to not let Donald Trump become president again and to win the House of Representatives, which had certain leaders in 2022 done a slightly better job, maybe we would control today, but we don’t,” she said.
Tensions have been simmering internally within the Biden camp. NBC News reported that those tensions boiled over in light of the debate, with Biden family members discussing whether Dunn should be fired — reportedly angered by her suggestion first son Hunter Biden keep a low profile.
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Dunn was asked about a letter sent by President Biden to lawmakers saying he wasn’t getting out of the race, which she admits backfired on some members. When asked if Hunter was involved, she said: “That is not true.”