At a New Hampshire campaign event for Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dean Phillips (Minn.) on Thursday, former presidential candidate Andrew Yang claimed that if President Biden becomes the party’s nominee, he will “deliver to us Trump the sequel.”
Yang complimented Phillips’s efforts to find a younger, new candidate to represent the Democratic Party in 2024, and said Phillips went to California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and urged them to run against Biden but his efforts were unsuccessful.
He criticized Democratic leaders who did not step forward and run “despite the fact that Joe is down by 8 points in Georgia, down by 8 points in Michigan — states he won — down by 9 points in North Carolina, which is like a swing state. Like, Joe Biden, who I supported last time, in my view, is going to deliver us to Trump the sequel.”
Yang continued, “Dean Phillips saw this and said, ‘You know what? I am going to do something about it.’ And Dean Phillips is the only one with the courage, the character and conviction to go against the grain, to go against the legion of followers in Washington, D.C., who would put their careers above their country and said, ‘You know what? American deserves a choice. America deserves a choice in its leaders.’”
Phillips announced in October that he would be running for president against Biden, after previously signaling he would not do so. While he thinks Biden has done a “spectacular job” in the White House, Phillips has repeatedly called for a competitive primary instead of Biden running unopposed for the nomination.
The Minnesota Democrat has repeatedly stated that the 2024 election is about the future, and the country deserves better than a 2020 rematch between Biden and former President Trump, the likely Republican nominee.
In a recent interview, Phillips said there is not “one shred of evidence” that Biden can overtake Trump in the upcoming election.
At Thursday’s Manchester, N.H., campaign event, Yang highlighted the 54-year-old three-term lawmaker, and said having someone younger in office address challenges such as artificial intelligence would “help me sleep more soundly at night.” He continued, suggesting the Biden administration may be complacent in solving the country’s problems because they “think they’re going to be” in office either way.
The event comes just days before Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.
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