Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden laughed off CNN political analyst Van Jones’s assessment on Friday that he’s running a “dead man walking campaign.”
“Look, I know why I’m running,” Biden said on CNN after a clip of Jones’s interview played. “Just since the debate we’ve raised over 2 million dollars. I got in this thing late. I didn’t have a fundraising base. I’ve been out of office for three years. It’s just beginning to build...It takes time to build this.”
Biden explained his reasons for running, including helping Americans have “adequate healthcare,” ensuring taxes don’t go up, combating climate change, and more.
Though Jones admitted Biden could still turn his flailing campaign around if he performs well in the South Carolina primary, he pointed to the lack of enthusiasm for his campaign—in both fundraising and crowd size—as a warning sign for Biden.
“There’s a weakness in the Biden campaign, not just a weakness in the candidate,” he said earlier Friday. “No, the problem is—a former vice president, two-term vice president, Obama’s guy—should be just sucking in money. He’s broke. That shows a lack of enthusiasm not just at the grassroots level where he needed that, but also at the top.”
Jones added that Biden is also “not filling stadiums like Bernie Sanders” and that his grassroots operation is nonexistent.
“It’s very, very hard to understand the rationale of the Biden campaign,” he said. “It’s felt like a dead man walking campaign for a long time. But it could come back.”
CNN’s Van Jones: Joe Biden “is broke,” has “a lack of enthusiasm” from the grassroots to the top pic.twitter.com/sRKgynPsid
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) February 28, 2020