Media

Donny Deutsch: ‘Unelectable’ Elizabeth Warren is ‘unlikable,’ would get ‘trounced’ by Trump

by Joe Concha - 11/27/19 11:14 AM ET

MSNBC contributor Donny Deutsch called 2020 presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) “unlikable” on Wednesday’s edition of “Morning Joe” before being accused of being “problematic” by fellow panelist Karine Jean-Pierre for only applying such a characterization to female candidates.

“You can’t tell 160 million people you’re going to take something away that they already have,” Deutsch, a marketing and branding expert and MSNBC contributor, said when discussing Warren’s “Medicare for All” health care plan. “And I also think the electability thing. I’ve said this all along. I’ve taken some heat. I do not think she is electable.”

“I think she would get trounced in a landslide by Trump,” he continued. “I think people are sensing that. I also think she has a likability issue. I think her kind of high-school principal demeanor — this is not a gender thing, this is just kind of tone and manner thing. I think the American public, the more they see, the more they’re going: hmm… this is not the answer.”

.@DonnyDeutsch: Unlikeable Elizabeth Warren would get “trounced in a landslide” by Trump.

#tcot#ElizabethWarren#2020election#DonnyDeutsch@Morning_Joe pic.twitter.com/zCK4Sr1XBc

— Mark Finkelstein (@markfinkelstein) November 27, 2019

“Donny, the likability thing, it’s so problematic to hear. Because it is … always connected to female candidates. Women candidates,” Jean-Pierre, an NBC and MSNBC political analyst, replied.

“I think [Sen.] Bernie [Sanders] is equally as unlikable,” Deutsch noted of the Vermont Independent, a 2020 presidential candidate and self-described democratic socialist.

“Bernie’s more unlikable,” economist and former Obama auto task force head Steve Rattner injected.

“I have not heard it with any of the male candidates. You don’t hear that type of language,” Jean-Pierre insisted.

Deutsch retorted that he had just included Sanders as an unlikable candidate, to which Jean-Pierre reiterated that “we need to be careful.”

Warren’s favorability rating in the RealClearPolitics index of polls in currently 39.6 percent.

She has recently struggled in a series of polls and trails 2020 front-runner Joe Biden. The former vice president is sitting at 28.2 percent in the RealClearPolitics average, while Warren is at 16.7 percent after being at 26.8 percent on Oct. 9.

Tags Bernie Sanders Elizabeth Warren Joe Biden