Daily Beast reporter Hanna Trudo said Thursday that Joe Biden’s recent comments panning socialism have frustrated some progressives who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) campaign, with one former Sanders aide blasting the Democratic presidential nominee’s remarks.
During an NBC News town hall in Miami on Monday night, Biden touted himself as “the guy who ran against the socialists,” adding “there’s not one syllable I’ve ever said that could lead you to believe I was a socialist or communist.”
Trudo said on Hill.TV’s “Rising” on Thursday that a former Sanders campaign aide criticized Biden’s remarks, as well as similar ones Biden has repeatedly made to distance himself from the Democratic Party’s more left-wing members.
“The response that I got … is that this is arrogant and foolish, but it’s also really unnecessary,” Trudo said, sharing feedback she received when texting the former Sanders aide for reaction to Biden’s remarks.
“And so it’s alienating, in this person’s view whose close to the senator, it’s alienating sort of the movement that they had built up and it also goes against – at least messaging-wise – the pledge that Joe Biden had been offering to kind of unite not just the country but also the various factions of the Democratic Party.”
Trudo also discussed additional findings in her reporting published by the Daily Beast on Tuesday, adding that while Sanders supporters may understand that the attacks on socialism may be a strategic move by the Biden campaign to attract more moderate voters heading into the general election, many do not see it as “a good faith messaging effort,” especially after the two agreed on the creation of unity task forces in an attempt to bridge the divide between the party’s more liberal and moderate factions.
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