The aftermath of President Joe Biden’s viciously partisan primetime address dubbed by conservatives as the “Dark Brandon speech” has not been kind to the White House, with Republicans and even some Democrats alike slamming various facets of the speech, and with even some in the Biden-friendly mainstream media coming down hard on the grotesque optics of it all.
Not even 24 hours after his address and perhaps already sensing he went too far, Biden started walking it back when pressed by reporters on his labeling of so-called “MAGA Republicans” as representative of “an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic.”
In response to a reporter’s question, Biden said, “I don’t consider any Trump supporter a threat to the country.” Oh really?
Here we are now a week later, and privately some in the White House are said to be seething over the sustained criticism in the press of him crassly using his office to launch bitterly divisive, sustained partisan attacks on his political opposition, while others are acknowledging Biden and his “advance team” screwed up:
One person with knowledge of the situation said White House officials were irked by the negative [CNN] coverage of President Joe Biden’s speech last week in Philadelphia decrying the threats to American democracy. The person specifically noted the network’s focus on the speech’s optics in which Biden stood in front of a dramatic red background with several U.S. Marines behind him.
[…]
Despite the complaints [from the White House about CNN’s changes and criticisms], even some White House staff acknowledge that they erred in certain components of Biden’s speech. Two other people with knowledge of the mood inside the building said some staff were flabbergasted by the advanced team’s work, which made it so that a close up shot of the president only included the blood red background.
Indeed, the meme makers including our own Jeff Charles could not resist making comparisons between Biden in front of that creepy red background and Darth Sidious:
Joe Biden giving his primetime speech as Emperor Palpatine (Credit: Jeff Charles)
More importantly than White House officials reluctingly admitting the speech and the way it was carried out and presented wasn’t a good idea is that a majority of Americans did not approve of Biden’s message, as we previously reported.
In fact, one Democratic pollster – Mark Penn – says he believes Biden’s dictatorial student debt relief power grab and the Dark Brandon address likely blunted whatever supposed midterm election year “momentum” he and Democrats may have won after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade back in June:
As I’ve said many times before, Democrats are notorious for overplaying their hand and having their tactics backfire spectacularly when all the dust settles. This appears to be one of those times. You love to see it. You really do.