NBC’s “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd skewered President Obama’s “huge loss” and “embarrassing defeat” on trade last week, criticizing his ineffectual “last minute charm offensive” with Congress, and saying “this past week’s vote shows cracks in Obama’s relationship with his own party… and possibly his legacy.”
Obama “turned on the last minute charm offensive…. he shook hands, chatted with multiple members… he also walked the hallways of Congress the next morning with Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi before she took to the floor to pull the rug out from under him,” said Todd, before asking Obama’s former chief of staff Bill Daley to weigh in.
“I feel strongly, from both a policy sense and a political sense, it is very wrong for the Democrats to undercut the President at this stage,” said Daley. “This deal though can still get done in the next couple of days.”
Republicans “turned on … and weakened” President George W. Bush, costing them the 2008 presidential election, Daley suggested. “If the Democrats continue to do this sort of thing … and undercut the President, they’re only shooting themselves in the foot, cause it’s only going to weaken the party and whoever the nominee is” next year.
Obama’s “late flurry of personal activity” looked “both panicky and ineffective” said Todd, quoting from a National Journal article, before asking why Obama’s relationship with Congress “been such a conundrum for him?”
“After six and a half years, this President has met with [and] spoken to Democrats especially, over and over again,” said Daley. “I think to pass this vote off in some way because he wasn’t nice to people, or didn’t go and have a beer with ’em or go to a baseball game enough with ’em, is kind of silly — especially when you consider the seriousness of this issue!”
“You can say absolutely he hasn’t schmoozed enough with members,” said an exasperated Andrea Mitchell. The NBC journalist charged that Obama “has not done anything” with members of Congress. “The day after… the vote, instead of taking [members] golfing, he’s off with his friends on the golf course again!”
