(NewsNation) — Three Democratic candidates challenging President Joe Biden for the party’s nomination laid out separate visions for the country in a forum Friday night but were united in suggesting the incumbent is too weak to win in November.
Rep. Dean Phillips, Marianne Williamson and Cenk Uygur sat down with host Dan Abrams to argue why they are better positioned than Biden to take on the eventual Republican nominee. Biden was invited to participate but did not respond to NewsNation requests.
The three challengers have all faced criticism that they themselves are weakening Biden and widening the opportunity for former President Donald Trump to retake the White House. Trump is the presumed front-runner in the GOP primary.
“The Democratic delusion right now among senators and members of Congress that somehow we are hurting Joe Biden’s chances, that’s not true,” Phillips said. “Joe Biden has hurt his chances, and the reality is that it is a dream come true for Donald Trump.”
Williamson predicts this election will wind up being more similar to 2016 than 2020.
“Democrats are sleepwalking to disaster in 2024,” she said. “It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion.”
Despite polls showing most Americans don’t want a Biden-Trump rematch, the president maintains a massive lead over all three challengers in national average polling, according to FiveThirtyEight. Williamson is running in second place at around 6%.
Against Trump, though, it’s a different story for Biden. The former president has a 1-point lead in a Decision Desk HQ/The Hill polling average, and Biden’s approval rating is underwater at 43%. It’s lower in some individual polls.
“Joe Biden’s gonna lose,” Uygur said to voters. “I hate to break your heart, but he’s at 33%. No incumbent that’s been in the 30s in an election year has ever come back to win, not just for president, for any federal office. It’s already over. What we’re trying to do is snap you out of it, because we’re going to lose to Trump.”
Differences from Biden
To persuade Democratic voters, each of the three candidates will need to set themselves apart.
For her part, Williamson said she would be more aggressive in her policies. She says that while Biden is trying to alleviate Americans’ stress, she wants to “end the injustice.”
“We need a fundamental economic U-turn in this country,” Williamson said. “The president is taking the incremental approach to making things better for people whose lives are suffering.”
Phillips has credited Biden for investing in America, but not Americans.
“We have a crisis of costs and chaos,” he said.
FiveThirtyEight’s vote tracker shows Philips has voted in line with Biden’s positions 100% of the time, but one area he finds disagreement is the southern border, which he called an “embarrassing” and “unmitigated” disaster.
“Democrats have to wake up to the truth. The more we ignore it, the more we pave a path for Donald Trump to return to the White House,” he said. “I’m afraid President Biden is at a state where he has lost the ability to legitimately listen (to voters).”
Uygur says Biden’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas has been “monstrous.”
“He’s greenlighted the massacres and war crimes that Israel has committed. He’s sending our taxpayer dollars to go kill innocent Palestinians. Enough. Enough. How much are they going to kill with our money? I don’t want my money to go kill Palestinian children,” Uygur said.
Uygur also zeroed in on campaign promises that Biden hasn’t delivered, such as a $15 minimum wage and paid family leave.
“Paid family leaves polls at 84%, and he won’t fight for it,” Uygur said. “If you can’t get something passed that’s at 84%, you’re not a very good politician.”
Donald Trump’s ballot access
None of the candidates believe Trump should be left off election ballots, as is currently the case in Maine and Colorado. He was ruled ineligible in each state for what a court and elected official said was a violation of a clause in the 14th Amendment barring insurrectionists from holding office.
“I think it’s very dangerous,” Williamson said. “Anything we do to try to obstruct Donald Trump, this is not the way we’re going to win in ’24. We’re going to win in ’24 by offering the American people a better life. … We will beat him on the issues. Let us not beat him in court.”
Phillips was inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the building in an effort to stop the certification of the 2020 election that Biden won.
“Donald Trump inspired an insurrection. Every one of my colleagues in the Senate and House know it. We tried to prosecute him, and we failed,” Phillips said. “Do I think the Democratic Party should pursue legal channels to beat Donald Trump? No. The same way they shouldn’t pursue the same channels to keep us off the ballot. We should let American voters be the judge and jury.”
Border policy
A record number of migrants crossing the southern border continues to be a political problem for Biden, who has visited the border just once during his first term in office.
Phillips said the asylum process is broken and that congress is “misguided” in how it’s looking at the problem. If elected, he said he would require asylum-seekers to apply in their home countries and then if they qualify, they would be brought to the United States. He proposed providing $10,000 per person to start their new life in America.
“That’s called problem solving,” he said. “What we’re talking about right now is politics.”
Uygur called that proposal a “terrible idea” and a concession to Trump. Instead, he would send “an army of judges” to the southern border to help process asylum cases.
“The No. 1 issue is processing asylum claims quicker,” he said.
He also advocated for a Marshall Plan for Latin America, like what was instituted by President Harry S. Truman in 1948 to aid the economic recovery of European nations after World War II.
“Right now Venezuela is a disaster. That is why so much more people are coming to the border because a lot of them are coming from Venezuela, which they didn’t used to,” Uygur said. “If we help those countries, we also help ourselves. It’s a win-win.”
Policing reform
In the wake of the 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, cities across America vowed to “defund the police” and reallocate funding and resources to community and health resources. Instead, several reversed course and boosted funding for their departments.
Was “defunding” a mistake?
“I think the name was a mistake,” Phillips said. “Defunding the police is not the answer. Funding the police with better trained cadets, funding the police with social workers and mental and emotional health providers, 21st century strategies to improve lives to people so police are not burdened with this nonsense.”
Uygur says he hated the slogan, too.
“What it leads people to think is that you’re going to do no policing. That is not what anyone is in favor of,” Uygur said. “We want fair policing.”
Policing reform needs to be about training and culture, Williamson said.
“We go so quickly for lethal force, and everybody has seen it,” she said. “I know that the majority of our policemen are very fine men and women, but that doesn’t mean we’re not supposed to address the very dark forces that are going on in our police forces around this country.”
Economy
A November Gallup polls shows 32% of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the economy. Inflation has hit wallets hard over the past two years but has fallen to just above 3% from the year prior.
However, the stock market recently reached all-time highs and job growth remains strong. Biden maintains that his economic policies are working for Americans.
Williamson believes that narrative is a “lie.”
“When they say the economy is doing well, it’s doing well for 20% of Americans,” she said, “but those 20% are like on an island surrounded by a vast sea of economic despair.”
Phillips gave Biden credit for the “macro economy” but said he hasn’t done enough to help the middle class and low-income Americans.
“People are furious that their president is telling them everything is OK,” Phillips said.
Uygur acknowledged Biden’s record on the job market but said the president hasn’t effectively messaged to voters.
“He doesn’t like campaigning, he doesn’t like attacking Republicans or Donald Trump,” Uygur said. “He created twice as many jobs as Donald Trump. Do you know how much he’s down on the issue of jobs? Nineteen points.”
