Former White House chief of staff Ron Klain told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Wednesday that President Joe Biden’s departure from the presidential race was “unfortunate.”
He blamed public calls from donors and elected officials for Biden’s decision, noting the current president had won the nomination “fair and square.”
“When the president dropped out, you — I think it was a tweet you send out, you publicly blamed what you call donors and elected, saying that they ‘pushed out’ the president,” CNN host Anderson Cooper said. “They pushed out Biden from the campaign. Is that — is that really the case? I mean, after that debate, certainly, there was huge dismay among Democratic voters, wasn’t there? And certainly, just this latest poll that we just talked about at the top of the program with in terms of enthusiasm, it said 85% or something right now, as opposed to 46% in June.”
“Well, I read enthusiasm is up,” Klain replied. “There is a lot of rallying around the vice president. I’m so glad to see it. It’s hard-earned and well-deserved for her. But I do think the president was pushed by public calls from elected officials for him to drop out, from donors calling him to drop out. And I think that was wrong. I think he made the decision, ultimately, and he made the right decision to say if I’m going to leave the race, I think the vice president should take over and –”
“Why was it wrong though, for them to do that?” Cooper interrupted. “Why was it wrong for donors to raise objections to other elected officials?”
“I think that — not wrong immoral, but I think it was unfortunate because I think that the president had won the nomination fair and square,” Klain responded. “Fourteen million people went and voted for him and the vice president as vice president. But again, that’s all in the past, Anderson. He decided to drop out. He decided to endorse the vice president. Her campaign is going well. We have a better chance than ever to defeat Donald Trump this fall and to elect an experienced, talented, intelligent president to lead the country for the next four years.”
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