Former CNN host Don Lemon on Monday became exasperated after Democratic New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker delivered a long-winded response defending President Joe Biden’s economic job performance.
The national debt has jumped over $6 trillion under Biden to nearly $34.6 trillion and inflation remains high during his presidency. Lemon and Booker on “The Don Lemon Show” agreed the economy is doing well, but the former CNN host appeared to get frustrated after the senator’s answer to his question on why Biden’s “messaging” is not working to sway voters, even after former President Donald Trump’s conviction. )
WATCH:
“If you actually look at what the Biden Administration is doing, the economy is doing very well,” Lemon said. “The country is doing well right now. We could be better … Now there are executive orders to fix what’s happening at the border and with immigration in general. So the country is doing well, especially if you compare it to other industrialized, civilized nations. So why aren’t Americans feeling [it]? Why is it not working? Why is it not translating, especially if you look at the polls? You’ve got a man who wants to be president, who was president, who had 34 criminal counts, yet he is in this latest 538 average poll, puts Trump 1.6 points ahead of Joe Biden. What is going on? How does the administration turn this around?”
“Well, before we go to that, I think an important point to just establish beforehand is, and again this is not the popular understanding, but let’s just lay,” Booker said. “Trump really only had one big legislative accomplishment, which was his tax cut. Now Biden had so many, people forget, you have to remind them. But let’s compare both of their tax cuts because both of them had historic tax cuts. Donald Trump’s tax cuts overwhelmingly went to the wealthiest corporations and individuals. Joe Biden, people don’t know this, had one of the biggest middle-class tax cuts in American history, which was the child tax credit expansion. Literally, like 84 to 85% of the families in New Jersey got significant money back on their federal taxes and it had the collateral benefit of cutting child poverty almost in half in the United States of America. And every dollar Americans spend on raising a child above the poverty line, they actually get like $5 to $6 back because of the expanded economic potential, lower healthcare cost for that person and so on and so forth.”
Booker went on to say that Biden’s spending is “closing the deficit” in contrast to Trump’s and that there is nothing that the current president has not “done better” than the former president.
“We’re setting records for black America. We set a record already, most new business starts there are,” Booker said, appearing to be on the cusp of delivering more talking points before Lemon cut him off.
“The lowest black unemployment. Listen, Senator, I’m with you. I get it. You heard my question,” Lemon said, letting out a sigh. “I know that you’re there in Washington, but it’s not resonating … When I talk to people, you know what they say to me? ‘Well, I like Donald Trump,’ even Black men. ‘I like Donald Trump because he gave me a check,’ right? Because his name was on the check. That was a Democratic Congress. They know nothing about the accomplishments of Joe Biden. That’s a failure of Democrats. That’s a failure of the administration for people not to know. In messaging.”
Many polls have shown Trump leading Biden on immigration and the economy by double digits, including an Axios/Ipsos poll released in April among Latino voters.
Booker said he was not in disagreement with Lemon before launching into more talking points and asserting “messaging” will improve in the remainder of the Biden campaign.
wpDiscuz