Van Jones: ‘Everybody Comes on the Air and Says All These Great Stuff But Behind the Scenes it’s Full Scale Panic’

SCIUTTO: “Because I’ve heard that message for months, right, that look at the record, and if he just articulates the record, that will show in the numbers. But it hasn‘t. It hasn‘t shown in the numbers. And those numbers are getting worse. And he didn‘t show an ability to make that case aggressively in the debate. So I wonder where that leaves us, in your view?”
Jones: “Look, I’m just gonna be honest, I mean, everybody comes on the air and says all this great stuff, but behind the scenes it’s full-full-scale panic. People are passing around legal memos, PDFs are flying back and forth on Whatsapp, trying to figure out what are the options, how can you replace Biden, how do you get him to do it in a way where he feels respected as he should be respected, who should Kamala Harris‘s vice president be. The conversation on air and the conversation off air are completely different. And so — it‘s the same thing you saw with the Trump situation, where people would come on air and defend Trump, and then you talk to people and we‘ve got a crazy candidate. We don‘t have a crazy candidate. We have a great candidate. We have a beautiful man. We have someone who loves his country. We have someone who has given his all, I mean his all, to the last drop, for this country, but he may not be able to get across the finish line. A mature party has to take that into account, and that is what‘s happening. So, look, I understand people want to defend him and protect him and give him the space and the dignity to make his own choice, but there is a big conversation happening right now about how this happens, not whether.”