MSNBC analyst Howard Fineman said Friday that President Joe Biden “has transformed himself” into an “activist, pro-government” Democrat, and is now part of the “left-wing” of the Democratic Party.
Fineman appeared on “Morning Joe” and discussed with host Joe Scarborough what direction he thinks Biden and the Democratic Party are headed, as well as what the Republican Party’s response might be. (RELATED: Obama Says Biden Has Most Left-Wing Platform Of Any Major Nominee In History)
Scarborough began by asking Fineman what was next for the White House and Democrats, as well as what Republicans are “going to do with this moment,” since they said “no to a bill that three out of four Americans support,” referring to the coronavirus stimulus package signed into law on Thursday. He added that he suspected Republicans would be opposed to H.R.1 “because it’s about letting more Americans vote.”
Fineman said he suspected infrastructure was the next step for the Democrats.
“Then the question is what do they push next in Congress? I think it’s probably going to be infrastructure … That’s more contentious, but more possibility of bipartisanship on that,” Fineman continued. “As for Mitch McConnell and the Republicans, they’ve made their bet. They’re saying that this is going to fail, that Joe Biden’s optimism is misplaced … that the economy is not going to do well. I don’t know what their view of the pandemic is, but they’re making a bet on the economy.”
Fineman argued that Republicans didn’t understand that the economy won’t recover “without curing the pandemic,” saying Biden would need to execute that task and lead the Democratic Party forward with a “giant bill” and “other ambitious things.”
“Joe Biden, in a way, has edited out, or is attempting to edit out, a whole generation of the Democratic Party that was into making deals with the Republicans and with the business community and so forth. Joe will talk to them all,” Fineman continued. “But he’s going to go his way because he’s got to keep the left wing of his party on board. He’s part of it, by the way.”
“He has transformed himself … into a far more activist, pro-government — that speech he gave last night was the most pro-government speech I’ve heard a Democratic president give in recent decades. Think about that. That’s what he’s doing. That’s smart politics right now. What Mitch is going to do, I don’t know. They’re going to call everybody socialists, but I don’t know that it will work,” he concluded.