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Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) laid into his party in a “Fox News Sunday” interview, arguing that Democrats with concerns about President Biden were “suppressed and disenfranchised” during the 2024 primaries.
Why it matters: The onetime Biden primary opponent, who is retiring from Congress this year, appears to be positioning himself as one of Democrats’ most vocal internal critics.
- “We have a political system … that really has incentives that actually are working against us. And the corruption has to be addressed,” he said to “Fox News Sunday” anchor Shannon Bream.
- “Both parties are subject to it. And I’m going to start telling a lot of truths here in the coming months and years.”
Driving the news: Phillips told Bream that Democrats “ignored” his warnings about Biden’s age and ability to take on President-elect Trump.
- “I think that’s what frankly has led to Trumpism, people getting tired, being on the sidelines and their voices diminished,” he said.
- Phillips said he is “on a mission now to expose the truth and promote transparency, shine some sunlight on reality and hopefully provide some competition for two parties,” but stopped short of saying he is leaving the Democratic Party.
Between the lines: Phillips based his 2024 primary challenge against Biden on the argument that the 81-year-old was too old to take on Trump – and perceived by voters as too old to serve as president.
- He struggled to gain headway, however, garnering just 20 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary while 64 percent of voters wrote in Biden, who was not on the ballot.
- He suspended his campaign after Super Tuesday, garnering just four delegates to Biden’s 3,905, but Biden later dropped his reelection bid following his disastrous debate performance against Trump in June.
- Phillips was ostracized and publicly criticized by many fellow Democrats, including some of his friends in Congress, for his challenge to Biden.
Zoom in: Phillips said he has “heard complaints from many people that they couldn’t get to President Biden. They couldn’t spend time with him.”
- “There was this shield that propped him up as being maybe more mentally and physically fit than he was for the campaign ahead,” he said.
- Phillips suggested Vice President Harris was similarly weak against Trump, saying Biden “was not the only one that could have beaten Donald Trump. He was one of the few that couldn’t. And sadly, we ended up elevating yet another candidate who was not positioned well to win.”