Top Democratic strategist James Carville took a shot at his own party during an NBC News interview on Sunday, saying that they needed to quit whining about things that they did not get, and focus instead on fighting for the American people.
“You’ve got a situation right now. The Biden coalition — nobody’s happy,” NBC News host Chuck Todd said. “Progressives aren’t happy right now with how Build Back Better has gone. African American activists are not happy about how voting rights has gone. And if you look at the polling, the – honestly, the thing that’s cratering the most are independents. You know, the folks that just wanted the temperature turned down. You’re the president. What do you fix first?”
“Now, I think a lot of the Democratic base has not been told or informed of the things that President Biden and this Congress has accomplished,” Carville claimed. “But to me, those are the things that, if I’m a Democrat, I much more care about that than some word in a dictionary — that children are going to bed with a full stomach and a warm, you know, a warm house. I care that somebody, an hourly worker, is not sitting there working away at $7.25 an hour. And I see these signs all over, even in Louisiana and south Mississippi, $700 signing bonus. Those are real accomplishments.”
“And it’s something that you can run on. And again, you don’t talk about what you didn’t get,” Carville continued. “That’s what these — Democrats whine too much, Chuck. Just quit being a whiny party. And get out there and fight, and tell people what you did. And tell people the exact truth. The Republican Party stands for nothing other than, ‘Let’s relitigate the 2020 election,’ or, ‘Let’s get back at Jamie Raskin.’ That’s it. That’s the entire platform.”
WATCH:
WATCH: "Democrats whine too much," Democratic strategist @JamesCarville said on #MTP as independents drift away from the party in polling.
"You don't talk about what you didn't get. … Quit being a whiny party and get out there and fight and tell people what you did." pic.twitter.com/YWE2H1twyd
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) January 16, 2022
TRANSCRIPT PROVIDED VIA NBC NEWS:
CHUCK TODD, NBC HOST: You’ve got a situation right now. The Biden coalition — nobody’s happy. Progressives aren’t happy right now with how Build Back Better has gone. African American activists are not happy about how voting rights has gone. And if you look at the polling, the – honestly, the thing that’s cratering the most are independents. You know, the folks that just wanted the temperature turned down. You’re the president. What do you fix first?
JAMES CARVILLE: Well, first of all, I agree with my friend, Jim Clyburn. There’s an expression that I love. It’s called “soldier on,” right? And I don’t think we have sufficiently — if you’re a part of the Democratic base and you don’t care about child poverty, and you don’t care about hourly workers, then you’re really not a Democrat, right? Now, I think a lot of the Democratic base has not been told or informed of the things that President Biden and this Congress has accomplished. But to me, those are the things that, if I’m a Democratic, I much more care about that than some word in a dictionary — that children are going to bed with a full stomach and a warm, you know, a warm house. I care that somebody, an hourly worker, is not sitting there working away at $7.25 an hour. And I see these signs all over, even in Louisiana and south Mississippi, $700 signing bonus. Those are real accomplishments. And it’s something that you can run on. And again, you don’t talk about what you didn’t get. That’s what these — Democrats whine too much, Chuck. Just quit being a whiny party. And get out there and fight, and tell people what you did. And tell people the exact truth. The Republican Party stands for nothing other than, “Let’s relitigate the 2020 election,” or, “Let’s get back at Jamie Raskin.” That’s it. That’s the entire platform.
CHUCK TODD: Is there something Joe Biden can learn about the experience you helped Bill Clinton get through after ’94?
JAMES CARVILLE: Soldier on. You know, you had a bad week, but you had a good year. People going — people at the end of the day, are going to judge you on your year and not your week. And this is a tough, hard business. And you’ve got ups and downs. You got, you get bruised, you get beat up. But every president goes through this. I think President Biden to have — compared his record on what’s been told is a huge differential. And I think that they’re trying. I saw they were doing — you know, I’ve been talking about infrastructure since Eisenhower built the interstate highway system. Now, we’ve got a trillion dollars’ worth of infrastructure coming up. The children that are not living in poverty today are going to ride on better roads, have better broadband, cross better bridges. I mean, this is something we ought to be really proud of as Americans and we ought to talk about it, we ought to brag about it, we ought to tell people about it. If we do those kinds of things, we’ll end up with a better outcome, I promise you.