RACHEL MADDOW: Joy.
JOY REID: I can relate to having a cold, I’ve been Covid tested and have a slight cold as well. I can understand not feeling well. And, you know, obviously Joe Biden comes in with certain deficits. He has a stutter. You know, he- it is more difficult for him to communicate for that reason. So there is a lot to mitigate the way that he speaks, and you can understand it, and we have observed him for a long time. That said, I, too, was on the phone throughout much of the debate with Obama world people, with Democrats, with people who are political operatives, with campaign operatives. My phone really never stopped buzzing throughout. And the universal reaction was somewhere approaching panic. The people who were texting with me were very concerned about President Biden seeming extremely feeble, seeming extremely weak, and, I will just reiterate what I said earlier. President Biden had one job tonight. And it was one primary job. And yes, it was to litigate Donald Trump's, you know, criminality and all of those things. But he had to settle his own party. He needed to settle Democrats. Democrats always talk about the Democrats are bedwetters, Democrats are always panicking. Yes, Democrats are always panicking. They’re are always scared, right? They’re always thinking they're going to lose. Democrats are very pessimistic. This is just…
CHRIS HAYES: Neurotic.
REID: …who they are. They’re neurotic. But Joe Biden's job was to reassure them tonight. His job was to calm his party, to make them feel that yes, I can do this. I have four more years in me. I have the ability and the stamina and the strength to do four more years. He did not do that. He did the opposite of that. He made them more panicked. The people who were texting me were even more panicked. They actually expected it to be better than it was, and now they are in a, I will not say a full-fledged panic, but it’s getting there.
MADDOW: The people that you are talking to that are expressing these concerns, are these people who are involved in Democratic politics or are these liberals watching TV?
REID: These are not liberals watching TV. These are- these are campaign people. These are people who are either Democratic operatives, these are people who are former, sort of Obama World administration people, these are people in the business. So the civilians are also panicking. They are also texting me. But I was trying to kind of ignore the civilians and really talk to the campaign folks. People are worried, and it is not a full drumbeat yet. But there is talk of, look, here's the thing. I know a lot of politicians. I just happen to know a lot of them at a lot of levels. They all believe that they have a unique ability to run the race that they passionately want to run. And I know for a fact that Joe Biden passionately believes that he is the only person who can beat Donald Trump, and he has evidence of it because he did it before. He knows that he has certain demographic strengths that Donald Trump cannot counter. He is the real working class white guy that’s actually Donald Trump’s base, so he knows how to talk to them. He believes that he is the only person that can do it. The problem is, after tonight, his party doesn’t believe that.
. Ben Graham
. Ben Graham
