Jen Psaki weighed in ahead of Thursday’s first debate between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and the MSNBC host and former White House press secretary warned of the current president’s one weakness that could “lose the audience” mid-session.
The political pro said that while Biden “can’t control how Trump is going to behave” during CNN’s live debate, he can “prepare to react to it.”
Additionally, what he can control is how he approaches the debate questions at hand. Psaki expressed concern that if he doesn’t go the “Scranton Joe” route, the president could get the better of himself by trying to “prove himself.”
“If you are them, you are thinking about what is the best version of Joe Biden? The best version of Joe Biden is empathic, Scranton Joe, speaking in English, right? And very accessible language. He does have a gut instinct about that,” Psaki said. “Every time I used an acronym, he would chide me for that. That was what he would get upset about.
“The worst version or the vulnerability that — I don’t know if it keeps me up at night in the same way as the future of our democracy — is him trying to prove himself,” she continued. “He has a tendency to do this. And I know this from working for him for a year and a half. Meaning his vulnerability is when he is like, ‘I need more data points. I need lists of data points.’”
Psaki painted a picture of Biden that could see the president wanting to list off his accomplishments rather than be personable Scranton Joe that connects with voters.
“You’ve seen him with note cards, note cards that have data … A long list of numbers, a long list of numbers. GDP, job creation, the infrastructure bill and how many jobs have been created in Pennsylvania,” Psaki said. “If he starts giving those statistics and data, you start to lose the audience. And I think that is a thing if you are on the Biden campaign, you are hoping he doesn’t go to ‘prove myself, I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder, I’m very smart and I have done a lot for this country’ mode. He goes to empathic Scranton Joe mode. And that is something he can control. He can’t control how Donald Trump behaves.”
Watch the full segment with Psaki in the video above.
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