Symone Sanders-Townsend argued Biden campaign wasn't allowing president to speak directly to voters
Democrats ditch 'tone-deaf' Bidenomics message: Report
FOX News contributor David Webb joined 'FOX & Friends First' to discuss why Democrats are abandoning the key Biden talking point as the president hits the campaign trail to fundraise with celebrities.
MSNBC host and former 2020 Biden campaign aide Symone Sanders-Townsend said voters were not going to "get" the president's "Bidenomics" message and suggested they "let it go."
"They are not going to get ‘Bidenomics.’ Let it go. How about you just make sure they know what you’re going to do and what you did? … You can give folks all the numbers about GDP and all these other things, but the data doesn’t move people. Stories move people," she told Politico.
Townsend was also an adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris before she moved on to host weekend show for MSNBC.
She claimed the campaign wasn't letting him do what he does best, talking to the American people.
MSNBC host Symone Sanders suggested that the president's campaign ditch the "Bidenomics" message. (Left: (Photo by Earl Gibson III/Getty Images), Right: (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images))
"You haven’t seen him do what he can do [best]. He’s been on prompter, he’s been standing on stages looking very presidential with the flags behind him. He gives his speech and he gets out. When was the last time you saw Joe Biden do a rope line? When’s the last time you saw Joe Biden in a town hall taking questions from the American people?" she said.
Townsend added that putting the president in a more "intimate setting" where he can talk to voters might help alleviate age concerns.
The MSNBC host told Politico that the campaign wasn't making their messaging "plain" enough for voters to understand.
"They talked a lot about acronyms in the beginning and not enough about the plain things. You ain’t even got to name the legislation. Just tell the people what has happened. And I think that there was maybe too much of a focus on trying to message it tightly up in a nice bow and not enough focus on just, well, how can we make it plain for the people that we want to understand it?" she told the media outlet.
The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council in the Indian Treaty Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
ANALYSIS FINDS AMERICANS NEED EXTRA $11,400 TO AFFORD THE BASICS AS GOP LAWMAKERS BLAME ‘BIDENOMICS’
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was recently asked about "Bidenomics" and about how she would explain key voting blocs, such as young voters, "straying" from the president and looking at other choices, such as Donald Trump.
"Look, we understand what the American people went through these past three years, right? We came out of a pandemic, right? A pandemic that we haven’t seen in a hundred years. And when the president walked in, the economy was upside-down," she acknowledged.
Jean-Pierre continued, "And so we get it. We get that, so it’s going to take a little bit of time for folks to feel what the ‘Bidenomics’ has been able to do. That’s not something that I’m saying. That’s something that economists have said, right? It takes a little bit of time. But it doesn’t mean, it doesn’t mean that the president is not going to continue to work."
President Joe Biden at the White House on December 13, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Democrats and voters in general have soured on the "Bidenomics" messaging, as polls show the voters are unenthusiastic about the president's economic policies.
Long-time Democratic donor and Orlando attorney John Morgan said in December that the president needed to use a different term to describe his policies.
"Whoever came up with that, they don’t have a place in the advertising world," Morgan said. "The average reading level in America is seventh grade, and they’re thinking, ‘What the f--k does that mean?’"
Fox News' Jeffrey Clark contributed to this report.
Hanna Panreck is an associate editor at Fox News.
