Joe Biden's campaign chair, Jen O'Malley Dillon, cautioned campaign staffers not to watch cable news to prevent further demoralization among staff.
If it's this bad now, what's it going to be like in four months?
"Don't watch cable news all the time," O'Malley Dillon told her staff, according to Axios, "That is not the real world. The real world is the voters that are standing with us, the delegates that are with us, and we're going to weather this because of this organization."
All's well. Remain calm.
"When you give me polls, I'm going to give you direct voter contact," O'Malley Dillon said, sources told Fox News. "The people that the president is hearing from are saying, ‘Stay in this race and keep going and keep fighting, and we need you.’"
"Those voices will never be as loud as the people on TV, but remember that the people in our country are not watching cable news," she added.
That's very true. But 52 million people watched the debate on TV, and uncounted millions streamed it online. They don't have to watch cable news to know Joe Biden shouldn't be president of the United States.
The Biden campaign chair appeared on "Morning Joe" and continued her Pollyanna act.
"The president's in this race," O'Malley Dillon told the program. "You've heard him say that time and time again, and I think we saw on display last night exactly why, because Donald Trump is not going to offer anything new to the American people. He's the same person he was in 2020. He's the same person he was at the debate stage."
Axios has previously reported that both Biden and his staff keep a close watch on MSNBC's morning program, to the point that "Because Biden watches ‘Morning Joe’ so often, most of his top aides watch or track the show to anticipate potential questions from him."
The outlet also reported that Biden "often calls co-host Joe Scarborough — a former Republican congressman who's now a harsh critic of Donald Trump — to get Scarborough's take on issues and sometimes vent about media coverage, according to people familiar with the relationship."
Biden himself called into "Morning Joe" earlier this month to try to shore up support.
"The bottom line here is that we’re not going anywhere. I am not going anywhere," Biden told the hosts, both avid supporters who had started to go wobbly after the debate.
A DNC official told Axios: "I appreciate the focus on staff efforts, but no one wants or needs to be gaslit about the president."
Unless they're demoralized staff and need to be propped up.
"This two-week window has really sucked, and it is hard, there is no doubt about it. And it's hard for all of us because we are doing the job," she told staffers.
"If we can get through these two weeks that we're living through, we can get through anything," she said.
O'Malley Dillon also tried to buck up the troops with impressive stats about campaign activity.
"We had 76% of those people that are with Joe Biden, and those are not Joe Biden voters. Those are our re-engagement targets, the people that haven't checked in yet, they are expansion targets–the people that weren't with us in '20 but have moved to us and our issues since then."
How many of those doors were slammed in their faces? Never mind.
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