AOC's ex-communications director says Biden is 'old as s***', 'deeply unpopular', has been 'largely ineffective' and the Democrats will get 'demolished' in the midterms
Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's former communications director tore into President Joe Biden over the weekend, calling the 79-year-old commander-in-chief 'old as s***' and predicting he'll get Democrats 'demolished' in this year's November midterms.
Corbin Trent, who worked in the Democrat firebrand's Congressional office and then her re-election campaign before abruptly departing in March 2020, told Politico that Biden is 'deeply unpopular' and vulnerable to a left-wing primary challenge.
'People will smell opportunity, and D.C. is filled with people who want to be president,' he said.
'He’s deeply unpopular. He’s old as shit. He’s largely been ineffective, unless we’re counting judges or whatever the hell inside-baseball scorecard we’re using. And I think he’ll probably get demolished in the midterms.'
Trent co-founded the progressive group Justice Democrats, which guided Ocasio-Cortez to her stunning upset victory against former New York Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley.
He also worked for Bernie Sanders' 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, the latter of which posed a significant challenge to Biden's own White House bid.
Corbin Trent (right, pictured with Ocasio-Cortez in 2019 when he worked as her communications director) co-founded Justice Democrats, the progressive group that discovered and backed the firebrand lawmaker's successful primary bid against former New York Rep. Joe Crowley
Trent believes President Joe Biden is vulnerable to a primary challenge in 2024, a rare problem for an incumbent commander-in-chief
Multiple polls have projected Republicans taking back control of Congress in November. Last year's off-year races, which were seen by some as a referendum on Biden's first year, saw Democrats finish with a lackluster performance in multiple state legislatures, local offices and even lose the governorship of Virginia.
Another fellow Sanders alum, the Vermont senator's former presidential campaign manager Jeff Weaver, told Politico that Biden is certain to face a primary opponent but said the possibility only grew likely after Senator Joe Manchin delivered a massive blow to his Build Back Better bill last month.
'Will there be a progressive challenger? Yes,' Weaver said.
He added that an opponent on the left would be more a symbol of progressives' rising popularity than a rebuke of Biden's presidency.
'Progressives are ultimately ascendant. And if nothing else, a progressive running who gets a lot of support will demonstrate that the ideas that the progressive movement embraces are, in fact, popular,' Weaver said.
But rather than a big name challenger like Sanders, Elizabeth Warren or Cory Booker, one progressive is quoted in the report predicting lower-profile Democrats will come to the forefront.
Ocasio-Cortez made headlines over the holiday weekend while partying in Florida as her home state of New York languishes under the Omicron COVID variant (pictured with actor Billy Porter in South Beach, Miami on January 2)
'Someone like Nina Turner or Marianne Williamson. Doubt anyone currently elected,' they said.
Turner was an Ohio state senator and national co-chair of Sanders' 2020 campaign. More recently she lost the Democratic primary in the state's 11th Congressional District, for last year's special election to succeed Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge.
Williamson mounted an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.
The last Democrat to face a significant primary challenge was President Jimmy Carter, whose 1980 re-election bid was threatened by late Senator Ted Kennedy's popularity in the Democrats' race. Carter eked out a victory but was defeated in the general election by Ronald Reagan.
But compared to Biden, Carter fared significantly better in the court of public opinion in his first year as president, according to poll aggregation site FiveThirtyEight.
An average rating measured by multiple polls has Biden's job approval rating at only 43.3 percent. Carter's approval rating was 57 percent at this point in his term.
About 51.6 percent of Americans disapprove of Biden's job in office.
Biden has publicly stated his intention to run for another four years, which would make him the oldest person ever sworn into the Oval Office -- beating a previous record held by his 2020 inauguration.
Biden's job approval rating at this point in his term is lower than that of Jimmy Carter's, the last Democrat to face a significant primary challenge to his re-election campaign
But it appears even the media, including outlets that had been friendlier to his administration, is preparing for a post-Biden Democratic party in 2024.
The New York Times published an opinion piece last month by columnist Bret Stephens titled 'Biden Should Not Run Again — and He Should Say He Won’t', after CNN listed a crop of candidates who could replace the 79-year-old on the Democratic ticket.
The articles raising serious questions about whether Biden will try for a second term comes amid concerns about his age - which would be 86 if he runs for a second term - low poll numbers and less frequent mentions of his name when discussing the Democratic primaries.
CNN's list of 11 potential replacements include Vice President Kamala Harris, who is grappling with her own low approval ratings; Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg; and failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who is taking another shot at leading the Peach State in 2022.
The Times published a similar piece, floating the same group of 11 potential presidential hopefuls and noting that 'conversations about possible alternatives are beginning far earlier than is customary for a president still in the first year of his first term.'
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