Every so often the media has brief moments of honesty worth noting. On Sunday’s Inside Politics on CNN, the liberal panel of journalists worried about the far-left’s control on the Democrat party “damaging” the Biden administration, with one panelist even noting that many Democrats “agreed” with Cuba’s regime.
Host Abby Phillip opened the segment by fretting about a “divide” in the Democrat party on how to handle the protests in Cuba. She played President Biden’s comments on Thursday condemning Cuba’s communist state, before asking her panel, if this was Biden’s “golden opportunity” to win back voters he lost in 2020 (because of his party’s support for socialism):
So, this is all happening in a political context, of course, in which Democrats are looking at what happened in 2020, where Joe Biden’s margin over Donald Trump with Latinos was 7 percent, that is compared to 27 percent for Hillary Clinton just four years earlier. So is this a golden opportunity for Democrats to get the policy right and the politics right on the issue?
That’s when CNN analyst and Washington Post reporter Toluse Olorunnipa admitted that many Democrats support socialism so Democrats didn’t want to “push hard” against Cuba’s oppressive government:
But we were just talking about how progressives are really happy about all of the things in the infrastructure bill. They are really being led in many ways by the progressive wing of their party and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party does not want to go hard against Cuba, against some of the things that the Castro regime may have been a part of. In part because there are some Democrats, there are some progressives who agree with some of those things. They agree with universal health care. They agree with some of the programs that were in place in a more socialist kind of society. And Joe Biden is trying to push against that. He’s essentially trying to say, you know, we do not want our party to head in that direction because he saw what happened in south Florida in 2020…
They spent the remainder of the time fretting about far-left Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were “damaging” the Biden admin’s reputation with Hispanic voters. CNN analyst Jackie Kucinich with the Daily Beast noted, “he has this very vocal progressive wing that is saying something that’s counter that could be politically damaging to what the Biden administration and the Democratic Party is trying to do.”
Fellow panelist Rachel Bade, co-author of the Politico playbook agreed. She brought up how after the midterm elections where Democrats lost “way more seats than they were predicting,” there were calls to “stop using the word, ‘socialism.’” She worried, “but clearly, you know, that Democratic socialism is still being embraced.”
Even after all the talk about Democrats losing seats in 2018 due to their embrace of socialism, Phillip ended the segment by wondering if the Biden administration avoiding Cuba was really going to make a difference with voters because Americans were more “concerned” about domestic issues.
Carvana and Bathfitter paid for this segment, contact them at the Conservatives Fight Back page.
Read a relevant transcript below:
CNN Inside Politics
6/19/2021
ABBY PHILLIP: Widespread protests continue across Cuba over rising COVID cases and deaths, and long-standing poverty and repression on the island.
It has also exposed a divide within the Democratic party about how to respond to them. President Biden used his strongest language to date to denounce the Cuban regime.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN: Communism is a failed system — universally failed system. Cuba is a, unfortunately, a failed state in repressing their citizens.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, this is all happening in a political context, of course, in which Democrats are looking at what happened in 2020, where Joe Biden’s margin over Donald Trump with Latinos was 7 percent, that is compared to 27 percent for Hillary Clinton just four years earlier.So is this a golden opportunity for Democrats to get the policy right and the politics right on the issue?
TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, WASHINGTON POST: It could be. But we were just talking about how progressives are really happy about all of the things in the infrastructure bill. They are really being led in many ways by the progressive wing of their party and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party does not want to go hard against Cuba, against some of the things that the Castro regime may have been a part of. In part because there are some Democrats, there are some progressives who agree with some of those things. They agree with universal health care. They agree with some of the programs that were in place in a more socialist kind of society.
And Joe Biden is trying to push against that. He’s essentially trying to say, you know, we do not want our party to head in that direction because he saw what happened in south Florida in 2020 where, you know, he did very much worse than Hillary Clinton and Democrats really lost a lot of ground in part because Republicans were pushing this message that all Democrats support socialism and they support the kinds of policies that will make the United States a third world country.
Some of that was hyperbole but it resonated with a lot of the voters there and Democrats are trying to figure out how to —
PHILLIP: In south Florida — and where, in south Florida where just like in Cuba there have been protests in the streets this week in support of those protests.
And one of the dynamics to your point about Democrats is the progressive members like AOC, versus members like former congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell who lost her seat —
KUCINICH: Yes.
PHILLIP: — to a Cuban American over this issue. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OCASIO-CORTEZ: We also condemn the Biden administration’s decision to continue to contribute to the suffering of working people across Cuba.
DEBBIE MUCARSEL-POWELL, FORMER FLORIDA CONGRESSWOMAN: The only government to blame here, the only culprit of is what is happening in Cuba, is the Cuban government which has been a dictatorship.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KUCINICH: For those of you who write books, I think this is going to be a chapter and the one about the Biden presidency and about him trying to get the message out when he has this very vocal progressive wing that is saying something that’s counter that could be politically damaging to what the Biden administration and the Democratic Party is trying to do. And I think all they have to do — all they can do is listen, right. Because they’re not going to — no one is going to go quiet on the progressive wing, and just try to get their message out there louder. Because that is — that is going to be used, what Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — you can see that being an ad.
PHILLIP: Yes.
KUCINICH: It’s going to be used in the next — in the 2022 election.
PHILLIP: Go ahead.
BADE: No, I was just going to say there have been some Democrats who tried to tackle that head on. I mean right after the midterm elections where Democrats lost way more seats and they were predicting — almost lost the House — there were this, you know, these tense conference calls where they tried to say to their progressive colleagues stop using the word “socialism”.And I mean this a broader issue than Cuba specifically but clearly, you know, that Democratic socialism is still being embraced and some in the left —
KUCINICH: And just– for something else that they were going to be upset about.
PHILLIP: Meanwhile the Biden administration, their policy here has been kind of to not do anything at all.
KEITH: They have not yet put their stamp on Cuba policy. It doesn’t seem like addressing Cuba policy or modifying the sanctions that President Trump had put in place or modifying the relationship, it really doesn’t seem like that was part of the first 250 days agenda but once again this is another one of these foreign policy challenges that has shown up that wasn’t part of the plan that the administration is now being forced to deal with, to think about.And they’re kind of being dragged into it. It doesn’t seem like they are eager to put this at the top of pile.
PHILLIP: And maybe they’re right because Americans are concerned about what’s going on domestically. They’re not as concerned about these foreign policy issues. And Republicans they want to make this an issue but it remains to be seen whether it will be something to moves votes outside of south Florida, of course.