Casey Vilt

Dean Phillips Said the Quiet Part Out Loud If you do anything today, watch this three-minute clip of @deanbphillips on All-In from SEVEN MONTHS AGO. Rep. Dean Phillips announced he would challenge President Biden for the Democratic nominee last October. He joined All-In in November and explained why he was running. ***Again, this is from seven months ago*** Rep. Phillips on President Biden: "He's a human being. He's now in his eighties. He is clearly on the decline. He's not incompetent. I believe he's surrounded himself by competent, able, principled people." "But do I think that he will be in a position to continue leading this country in the future? I do not. I think I'm joined by about 75% of the country in saying that." "People are saying that I'm causing his problems, that I could risk his reelection." "I'm not the guy that has him losing to Trump nationally, down in five of six battleground states, the lowest approval ratings in presidential history, almost." "And I'm certainly not the guy that has shown his decline. That's on video, that's on audio, you see it. He's a human being, for goodness sakes." "All I'm doing is saying the quiet part out loud. The only one!" "You ask the question, 'Do others talk about this?' The question is, 'Is anybody not talking about this?' Of course they are, you guys." @DavidSacks asked: "What has been the blowback in the Democratic Party from your declaring?" "What do you think? I'm not being thrown flowers and parties, let me tell you that." "I think they're disappointed because this is not what you do when you're a member of a party." "You fall in line, you shush up, you sit down, you get in line, and you do nothing to upset the applecart of others who've been waiting in line perhaps a little longer than you." "(President Biden) implicitly, if not explicitly, said he would be a transitional president. Kind of the bridge." "Most members of Congress thought he was going to stand down." "That's why Newsom and Pritzker and Whitmer and so many others were kind of making their plans." "I started seeing the polls change dramatically. The tenor and tone of constituent discussions with me and every single one of my colleagues was changing graphically." "And I was really frustrated. I called @GovWhitmer. I called @GovPritzker. I made public calls to the candidates whose names are better known than me to jump in. The water's warm, you guys. It's a Democratic Primary. That's what we do." "Not only did those two not take my calls, which they would have any other day. They had their political operatives take those calls, and they told me, 'Please, don't use their names.' That's the culture that we're dealing with." "You will be blackballed, you will be disenfranchised, you will be let out the door, if you so much as even issue a word that you might challenge a sitting President of the United States." "This is the United States of America. It's appalling." "I think I'm the only one that's willing to torpedo a career so that the country isn't torpedoed by this nonsense and dysfunction."