Biden-Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon cautioned staff to avoid watching cable news in order to prevent further demoralization among her team.
As the daily calls, both publicly and privately, for President Biden to drop out of the presidential race continue apace more than three weeks after the debate, campaign staff are reportedly suffering from a lack of morale. In that vein, O’Malley Dillon convened an all-staff call on Friday, telling them to ignore the news reports, and instead listen to Biden’s hardcore supporters for a reality check.
“Don’t watch cable news all the time,” O’Malley Dillon told her staff, according to Axios, “That is not the real world. The real world is the voters that are standing with us, the delegates that are with us, and we’re going to weather this because of this organization.”
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Axios reported that Biden campaign chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon told her staff, “Don’t watch cable news all the time.” (Biden photo by Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images | Andre Chung for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“When you give me polls, I’m going to give you direct voter contact,” O’Malley Dillon said, sources told Fox News. “The people that the president is hearing from are saying, ‘Stay in this race and keep going and keep fighting, and we need you.’”
“Those voices will never be as loud as the people on TV, but remember that the people in our country are not watching cable news,” she added.
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Just hours before the call, the campaign chair made a rare media appearance on cable news, assuring the audience and hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Biden is staying in the race and is “more committed than ever to beat Donald Trump.”
“The president’s in this race,” O’Malley Dillon told the program. “You’ve heard him say that time and time again, and I think we saw on display last night exactly why, because Donald Trump is not going to offer anything new to the American people. He’s the same person he was in 2020. He’s the same person he was at the debate stage.”
The cable news channel reportedly has an outsize influence on the White House.
Many of Biden’s allies have expressed concern about his viability to beat former President Trump in the 2024 election. (Biden photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images and Trump photo Mario Tama/Getty Images )
Axios has previously reported that both Biden and his staff keep a close watch on MSNBC’s morning program, to the point that “Because Biden watches ‘Morning Joe’ so often, most of his top aides watch or track the show to anticipate potential questions from him.”
The outlet also reported that Biden “often calls co-host Joe Scarborough — a former Republican congressman who’s now a harsh critic of Donald Trump — to get Scarborough’s take on issues and sometimes vent about media coverage, according to people familiar with the relationship.”
Biden himself called into “Morning Joe” earlier this month to try to shore up support.
“The bottom line here is that we’re not going anywhere. I am not going anywhere,” Biden told the hosts, both avid supporters who had started to go wobbly after the debate.
“I wouldn’t be running if I didn’t absolutely believe that I am the best candidate to beat Donald Trump in 2024,” Biden added. “We had a democratic nominating process where the voters spoke clearly. I won 14 million of those votes.”
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Fox News Digital reached out to the Biden campaign and did not receive an immediate reply.