Psaki on Biden’s Performance: ‘I Don’t Think We Should Sugarcoat This... ‘

MADDOW: “Jen Psaki has joined us here at the table. Jen, what was your reaction to the debate and what are you hearing from people you have been talking to over the course of the night?”
PSAKI: “Well, I have been listening to what you all have been saying tonight, I don’t think we should sugarcoat this. This was not the debate performance that the Biden team wanted or needed from this debate, in part because they wanted to do this debate as early as they did to change this up, right, to bring the Joe Biden who was at the State of the Union to the debate stage. That is not the Joe Biden who showed up at the debate stage. You could see inklings of that or wrinkles of that or whatever you want to say at the post-debate event — “
MADDOW: “The very last answer of the debate, when all of a sudden it was like, ‘Oh, he’s warmed up!’”
(Laughter)
PSAKI: “Yes. And as you said, Rachel, he did improve as the night went on, his voice improved, his answers improved. He had a couple of moments. I thought his answer on calling out Trump’s criminality was pretty good. He was a little garbly on abortion. If you’re the campaign, you’re going to push out the best moments — there were a couple — on social media. But it’s not the debate they wanted. I think the biggest challenge for them, and Nicolle has been talking about this a little bit, we have sat in similar chairs, is how distracting all of the chatter is going to be, which I am getting, we are all getting on text on email, about whether he should be replaced. That chatter is happening. People are asking questions. I don’t mean it’s from the American public writ large, and we do not know how they feel and we won’t know for some time. If you look at history, this may not impact them at all. But the chatter is very distracting and it will be very consuming for the campaign, should he be replaced. They will be answering that question instead of breaking through on attacking Trump.”
MADDOW: “May I ask — I asked Joy a version of this too — is the chatter from the peanut gallery or is the chatter from deciders?”
PSAKI: “It is largely — it depends from who deciders are, right, because the deciders are really the public. I have not heard that from campaign operatives.”