Political strategists on MSNBC’s "The Katie Phang Show" worried Saturday President Biden's classified documents scandal would hurt his "momentum" and poll numbers after "so much work" had been done to bring them up.
Phang questioned Democratic strategist Alencia Johnson over whether the White House has done enough to explain Biden’s handling of classified documents, warning that critics have suggested there’s "not enough data" for the public.
Johnson agreed that the White House needs to be more transparent because Biden being under investigation is overshadowing better news on inflation and could make people lose trust in him.
"That is not giving us the best headline when we really want to be talking about that inflation is down for six months in a row. And so, we want to make sure -- I think the Biden team is trying to make sure that they have all the facts and they can't, you know, have the American people not trust the president right now when we have done so much work to get his poll numbers up, to get, you know, the confidence back in this president," Johnson said.
She added, "So, we will see the White House being very careful, ensuring that they're cooperating with the investigation. But also not putting us back into a place of really hard defense, where it will be hard for us to get out of."
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Phang insisted that the narrative is being further influenced by Republicans who are drawing comparisons between the actions of Biden and former President Trump regarding the mishandling of classified documents.
Phang said, "They're working the airwaves, trying to convince Americans that the Biden and the Trump cases are one-and-the-same. But, Susan, do Republicans really think that voters are gullible enough to buy what they're selling?"
Political strategist Susan Del Percio agreed that the story has been "weaponized politically" by Republicans who will likely push it even further ahead of the 2024 elections and worried it would slow down the momentum Biden has "rightfully" gained.
"What it does for the Democrats, more importantly though, it takes away the argument about going after Trump for handling classified documents. That was believed to be one of the best cases against Donald Trump, legally and politically. So, it puts them in a little bit of a box. The other thing it does, is politically, it's taken away the momentum that President Biden has had -- rightfully had. And now he has to wor -- think about, do I postpone my announcement? It really does put a -- a bump in the road. And the fact is, as an issue, it's like a two or a three. But, when weaponized politically by the Republicans, it gets closer to a seven or eight," Del Percio said.
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Biden has come under scrutiny for having classified materials in both his Delaware residence and the Penn Biden Center, with the latter originally found in November. After the news broke, some mainstream media outlets proceeded to defend Biden, insisting that the situation is different from Trump.
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"I’d venture to say the biggest difference here is one that the law recognizes, and that’s one of willfulness. There’s nothing to indicate based on what we know so far, that President Biden either took these documents willfully or retain them willfully. And when you look back at the Trump’s search warrant application, there are three statutes that the Department of Justice said they were investigating violations of, one has to do with concealing documents from the government in an ongoing investigation. Certainly, we’re not there with President Biden yet," MSNBC analyst Lisa Rubin said Tuesday.
