Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips, who ran a failed presidential campaign against President Biden, defended his decision to oppose his party’s leadership in a recent interview despite criticism.
Phillips announced in 2023 that he would not seek re-election in 2024. The decision came after he mounted a long-running primary challenge against Biden. While his campaign was unsuccessful, the Minnesota congressman used his media interactions to highlight his concerns about Biden’s age.
“We are completely devoid of leadership,” Phillips said in an interview with Politico. “We are rudderless.”
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Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips, who ran a failed presidential campaign against President Biden, defended his decision to go against his party’s leadership. (Mel Musto/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“If what I feel now is vindication, it is completely unsatisfactory,” Phillips said. “I felt right the day I announced my campaign, because I knew this wasn’t an opinion. This was a fact. The fact is that he was not in a position to win. The fact is that his approval ratings were historically low. The fact is that he was not “Was his physical deterioration real, and the only justification I cared about was my own, and I am saddened to have been acquitted to the disappointment of many of my colleagues and our party.”
Phillips became a pariah within the Democratic Party for a time after he launched a long-running primary campaign against Biden late last year. He had argued for months before that The 81-year-old president Needed to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders.
Phillips told Politico that after President-elect Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party needs a “total transformation.”
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Phillips said Biden’s “physical decline” was real and the Democratic Party should not ignore it. (Chip Somodevilla)
“A party that is made up of multiple silos, campaign committees and outside groups cannot do its work strategically, and that means leadership,” Phillips said.
“In my presidential campaign, I regret that I was not able to create a platform to really wake people up from this nightmare that we have been sleepwalking through,” he said.
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser, Elizabeth Elkind and Matteo Sena contributed to this report.
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