MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Torpedoes ‘Dump Biden Strategy’ Against Trump In Blistering 27-Minute Commentary

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell savaged the “Dump Biden” strategy point-by-point in a blistering commentary that lasted 27 minutes and took a sledgehammer to the idea that President Joe Biden should step aside and let another candidate face former President Donald Trump.

A chorus of voices that most recently has included the likes of sportscaster Bob Costas and progressive commentator Ezra Klein has been suggesting that the president has done a great job but should step aside because people think he’s too old.

On Wednesday night’s edition of MSNBC’s The Last Word, O’Donnell devoted more than half his airtime to knocking that argument down from seemingly every conceivable answer.

Among the more compelling highlights are O’Donnell’s reading of the polling data and his analysis of Vice President Kamala Harris in the equation:

Everyone who says Joe Biden should drop out, and for the purposes of this discussion, I am only referring to the people who want the Democrats to win. Every one of those people who say Joe Biden should drop out must now say exactly who the nominee should be, and none of them do. None of them say that.

Some of them suggest a long string of names of possibilities, that list always include Gavin Newsom. And so, you would think that in their articles, and their comments on podcasts, on TV, that they would show you all of those polls where Gavin Newsom polls better than Biden against Donald Trump. There must be so many of these polls. But there aren’t any.

The most recent poll substituting other Democratic names for Biden against Donald Trump including — included only Vice President Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom.

It’s an Emerson poll that is now 10 days old. Donald Trump was polling at 45, against Joe Biden at 44. Substituting Kamala Harris as the candidate produced the result of Donald Trump polling at 46 against Vice President Harris at 43. And substituting Newsom’s name produced an even worse result with Trump polling out 46 and Gavin Newsom polling at 36 — 36.

Gavin Newsom might not know how to run a presidential campaign, but he knows how to read polls. You would think with the way the media obsessed over every poll it can find that they would have noticed these polls.

And how does today’s poll from Quinnipiac fit in the dump Biden strategy. A national poll by Quinnipiac shows Joe Biden at 49, and Donald Trump at 45.

Now, I mentioned the polls not because I have great faith in polls at this stage of the campaign, but just to point out the challenge you have if you want to argue that the Democratic nominee for president should not be Joe Biden, there is no substitute candidate who polls better than Joe Biden.

Now, assuming you still believe in Gavin Newsom, even though he’s polling 10 points behind Donald Trump, you must then explain how your choice of nominee gets the nomination. The more thoughtful, dump Biden proponents have recently try to work their way through, the maze of how someone other than Joe Biden can be nominated for the president in the Democratic Party. They all rely on Joe Biden, first of all, releasing all of his delegates at the convention on Monday, August 19th. And they all assume that the delegates who have showed up for the convention, at least 90 percent of whom will be Biden delegates, maybe more, will then easily agree on Gavin Newsom.

You certainly get the feeling that most people who want to dump Joe Biden also want to dump Kamala Harris from the ticket. They don’t seem to fear what would happen, among the key voting demographic, who delivered the presidency to Joe Biden and the vice presidency to Kamala Harris — Black women voters.

Watch above via MSNBC’s The Last Word and watch the full commentary here.