Pod Save America’s Tommy Vietor made it clear the last person Democrats need to be hearing from right now is former President Joe Biden after Biden delivered his first major speech since leaving office.
In a Thursday video for Pod Save America, Vietor, once an aide under former President Barack Obama, and Brian Tyler Cohen were both left unimpressed with Biden’s first major address to voters since losing the 2024 presidential election. Biden went after President Donald Trump on Social Security and more in his speech.
Vietor said he’s still “very mad” at Biden and added that he’s been learning “enraging” details about alleged efforts by the previous administration to “kind of cover up” the then-president’s physical and mental decline. The Pod Save America co-host said he’s learned these details through CNN anchor Jake Tapper’s upcoming book, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, which will be published in May.
Vietor said:
I’m grateful to Joe Biden for the things he did for his decades of service. I don’t want to hear him giving speeches right now. I’m sorry, I know that’s shitty. I know that’s petty. He doesn’t owe me anything. My opinion doesn’t matter here. I don’ want to hear — I’m very mad at Joe Biden. So I’ve been reading Jake Tapper’s book about the Biden administration and the steps taken to kind of hide his decline. I can’t get into the details, it’s still embargoed, but it is enraging.
Cohen offered praise for legislation pushed forward under Biden’s administration, but agreed he is not the right person for the party to be hearing from at the moment.
“We have a gerontocracy problem in our party, and so the reality is that the last thing we should be doing right now is giving the biggest platforms to the people who really are holding back the party more broadly in a moment where we are desperate for and desperately need generational change,” he said.
Vietor said the party cannot afford to look “backwards” with Biden.
“We don’t want to talk about his administration right now,” he said. “People are pissed. They’re mad about inflation. Democrats are mad at the administration for how it went for Kamala Harris. I get that he’s giving speeches, it’s probably paying the bills, but I don’t wanna hear it.”
Watch above via Pod Save America.
