Former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain thinks his former boss, President Biden, spends too much time talking about bridges and not enough on the cost of living.
“I think the president is out there too much talking about bridges,” Mr. Klain said Tuesday in an audio obtained by Politico. “He does two or three events a week where he’s cutting a ribbon on a bridge. And here’s a bridge. Like I tell you, if you go into the grocery store, you go to the grocery store and, you know, eggs and milk are expensive, the fact that there’s a f——— bridge is not [inaudible].”
Mr. Klain, speaking at an event hosted by the website Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, said Mr. Biden’s infrastructure initiatives are “positive,” but not worth occupying so much of his time.
“He’s not a congressman. He’s not running for Congress,” said Klain. “I think it’s kind of a fool’s errand. I think that [it] also doesn’t get covered that much because, look, it’s a f——— bridge. Like it’s a bridge, and how interesting is the bridge? It’s a little interesting, but it’s not a lot interesting.”
Mr. Klain in a follow-up interview with the outlet said he’s still proud of Mr. Biden’s accomplishments, but the best point his campaign can make is “compassion for the [pinch] of family budgets and his agenda to bring down costs and raise incomes.”
He said that “lauding achievements — especially ones with abstract benefits — is less persuasive with voters.”
Mr. Klain was Mr. Biden’s chief of staff from 2021 to this past February.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates told Politico that Mr. Biden is already doing what Mr. Klain suggests.
“Like Ron says, President Biden is crisscrossing the country building on his State of the Union message, highlighting that he is fighting to grow the middle class and lower costs like prescription drugs while blocking the trickle-down agenda Republican officials have proposed on behalf of rich special interests, including Medicare cuts and tax giveaways to big corporations,” Mr. Bates said.
The president has talked a lot about infrastructure recently due to last month’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore. He has said the federal government will cover the cost of the bridge’s entire reconstruction.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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