A former aide to Jill Biden has warned the former first lady and former President Joe Biden to stay out of politics for the sake of the Democratic Party.
Michael LaRosa, who served as Jill Biden’s communications director, was critical of the former president’s decision to return to the public eye after he made a speech tearing into the Trump administration last week.
“If they had advisers who had their hand on the pulse of the Democratic Party or national politics, they would have understood the intense level of anger or indifference to them that remains inside our party and isn’t going away anytime soon,” LaRosa said in a recent interview withThe Hill.
“I love both Bidens dearly, but staff loyalty means there is a responsibility to provide them with an honest situational awareness, especially when it comes to their public image, no matter how hurtful it is to hear,” LaRosa added.
Joe Biden made his first public address Tuesday since he left the White House in January.
LaRosa said the timing of Biden’s return was “a lovely gift for the White House,” as President Donald Trump was on the “defense” after heavy scrutiny over his escalating trade war.
“Biden’s reemergence, while it changed very little in the news cycle, provided a detour for the president to distract his cadre of supporters with Biden taunts and blame, giving Fox News nearly 48 hours of fresh new programming, taking editorial aim at the former president instead of the current one,” LaRosa told the outlet.
Biden’s popularity when he left office was low and the former president has not fared better in the most recent polling. His net favorability rating among Americans is -19 points compared to -6 for Trump, according to YouGov.
“It’s a heartbreaking and tragic ending to their time in public life, but it’s also the truth, and they should index the political realities into their decision making,” LaRosa said.
In a speech to the Advocates, Counselors, and Representatives for the Disabled’s national conference last Tuesday, Biden warned about preserving Social Security from Republican attacks.
“They want to wreck it, so they can rob it,” he said. Biden also criticized Republicans for trying to cut not just Social Security, but Medicaid.
His address follows Democrats’ attempts to recover from their brutal election loss, where Republicans not only regained the White House but also control of the Senate.
YouGov’s polling suggested that former president Barack Obama was the most popular well-known politician in the U.S., with a net favorability rating of +22. Other popular figures included independent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders (+12) and Republican former housing secretary Ben Carson (+6). The least popular in the poll were former Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell (-45), former vice president Dick Cheney (-32), Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (-31) and former New York governor and New York City mayor hopeful Andrew Cuomo (-30).
