Free Republic

On Tuesday’s broadcast of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” CNN Contributor and Democratic strategist Paul Begala said that the revelations about then-President Joe Biden’s mental fitness don’t impact the credibility of the Democratic Party at all and “I don’t think any Democrat who’s going to be facing voters in the midterms was at all complicit.” And there were “a whole bunch of politicians who understandably were rooting for him and hoping that he was doing fine, but they didn’t know.”Co-host Mary Louise Kelly asked, “What does this mean to your party’s ability to hold President Trump, his administration, and Republicans accountable...

Former President Clinton’s White House strategist Paul Begala says former President Trump’s stream of insults against Vice President Harris is “nutty at best and racist at worst” as a campaign strategy, as the vice president closes the polling gap, seizing on momentum. “He’s an insult comic,” Begala said Tuesday in a CNN interview. “That’s what he does.” Begala lauded Trump allies, including former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, for attempting to keep Trump on message and focus on campaign issues, but he noted Trump’s current strategy isn’t as effective against Harris as it was against President Biden. “The problem is he’s...

Rumors of Trump suffering buyer's remorse after choosing Vance as his 2024 running mate have been rampant since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the likely Democratic presidential nominee. While Trump has publicly insisted that he is happy with Vance, saying the senator is "doing a fantastic job" and has been "very well received" by the public during a Fox News interview on Thursday, worries remain about whether the Ohio senator could be a liability for Republicans in November. Paul Begala, who served as White House adviser and chief strategist during...

President Biden's re-election campaign is all but over, CNN political commentator and former Bill Clinton strategist Paul Begala projected on Thursday. "I've been talking to a lot of people, a lot of members in the Senate and House, major donors, activists, party chairs and I got to tell you, I think I‘ve come across one who is still ridin’ for Biden," Begala said candidly on CNN. "So the walls are closing in." Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime Biden ally, has made this argument in private calls to the president, according to CNN. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has...

Democratic strategist Paul Begala said Friday on CNN’s “News Central” that President Joe Biden’s press conference addressing the report from Special Counsel Robert Hur was “terrible.” Host John Berman said, “How much democratic bedwetting do you think there will be?” Begala said, “Look, I’m a Biden supporter. And I slept like a baby last night. I woke up every two hours crying and wet the bed. This is terrible for Democrats, and anybody with a functioning brain knows that.”

On Thursday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” CNN Political Commentator Paul Begala reacted to remarks about President Joe Biden’s memory in the special counsel report on his handling of classified documents by stating that “People who have been under oath are really, really careful. And so, sometimes they say, I can’t remember if they’re not absolutely precise. And the notion that he’d forgotten that his son died? No. He was probably just under a lot of stress. It was the worst day of his life.” But also said that Biden “was the same way 30 years ago. The gaps are...

CNN political commentator Paul Begala said Friday on CNN’s “The Lead” that he hoped the Supreme Court would let former President Donald Trump on all the state ballots. The Supreme Court announced it would hear arguments on whether Trump’s name can appear on primary-election ballots in Maine and Colorado, citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Democratic strategist Paul Begala said Tuesday on CNN’s “The Source” that former President Donald Trump’s Christmas Truth Social post saying his opponents should “rot in hell” is “blasphemy.” Begala said, “He wants to be a dictator. He says just for a day, but let’s see. I think the way Democrats and Republicans running against him respond to this is important. I don’t think they should pearl clutch. they need to turn this against him.” He continued, “It’s like this comment about Christmas, telling people to rot in hell, you know I am a Christian, that’s blasphemy.”

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” CNN Political Contributor and Scholar at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics Paul Begala stated that while there is a crime issue in red states and rural and suburban America as well, he wants “a Democrat to stand up and say, you know, some people belong in jail.” And that it’s those who Democrats “supposedly care about who are victims of crime here.” After reading from a Los Angeles Times article about crime problems in Portland, host Bill Maher asked, “This is a big Achilles’ heel for the Democrats is it not?”...

President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive some student loans was attacked Sunday by former adviser to Bill Clinton, Paul Begala, who despaired at what he called “terrible policy.” Addressing the $300 billion loan bailout during CNN’s “State of the Union,” the Democrat strategist found any number of flaws in the plan.

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” Democratic strategist and CNN Contributor Paul Begala criticized proposals for President Joe Biden to forgive student loan debt by stating that “Democrats have gone from being the party of the factory floor to being the party of the faculty lounge.” And Democrats should “go back to their roots, which is, earn it.”

CNN contributor Paul Begala went to bat for President Biden, making the case that the problem for Democrats isn't with those at the top of the party. On the subject of Biden's failing efforts to get voting bills passed in Congress, Begala was asked to react to a quote from Arndrea Waters King, daughter-in-law to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who told Politico, "What we’ve seen with President Biden is what happens when he puts his full force and power behind an issue like infrastructure. What we want to see is that same power and passion being put behind voting...

Former Clinton adviser and CNN political commentator Paul Begala said Wednesday on CNN’s “Newsroom” that President Joe Biden needs to use his upcoming coronavirus pandemic speech to combat “all these knuckle-dragging nincompoops on right-wing media who are lying to people.” Anchor Ana Cabrera said, “President Biden is not polling well right now. His approval rating has dipped below 50%. More Americans think he hasn’t been communicating clearly about the coronavirus response. Paul, how important is this upcoming speech in order to gain back the confidence of the American people?”

Longtime CNN political analyst Paul Begala predicted on Monday that President Trump is "gonna dump [Vice President] Mike Pence in favor of former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley" on July 16 when the Democratic nominee is slated to give his or her acceptance address. The former "Crossfire" co-host "guaranteed" Trump will throw Pence "under the bus" because of his handling of the coronavirus, which the president tapped Pence to lead a task force on last week. “This is not a prediction. It’s a certainty. On Thursday, July 16, that’s the date the Democrat gives his or her acceptance address —...

In these hyperbolic times, it's easy to fall into overstatement. Somehow, the farm-to-table dining preferences of Sarah Huckabee Sanders or the subliminal, sartorial messages of the first lady have become the subject of breathless debate. Cotton-candy controversies swirl for a moment and then disappear. The replacement of retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is not like that. It is, to paraphrase former Vice President Joe Biden, a big doggone deal. So big that Biden's old boss, former President Barack Obama, has descended from his Olympian remove to fire up the troops Thursday. He urged Democrats to quit moping, avoid complacency...

A key FBI agent who had been assigned to investigate Hillary Clinton and later President Trump traded text messages during the 2016 election, not only showing his disdain for Trump and preference for Clinton but also cryptically expressing a need for “an insurance policy” against a Trump presidency, whatever that means. This doesn’t prove a conspiracy either within the so-called "Deep State" or between it and Clinton, any more than the dribs and drabs leaked by the FBI to news media proves a conspiracy between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump. What it does show is that even in our...

CNN political commentator and former adviser to President Bill Clinton Paul Begala on Thursday rejected the premise that the media and the feminist community was too light on Bill Clinton for his alleged sexual assaults and harassment. CNN host Jake Tapper brought up the subject by mentioning the deluge of op-eds in the New York Times and other outlets saying that the left should have been more condemning of Clinton's behavior. Despite the fact that Clinton faced no punishment, Begala said he "didn't get away with anything" and called Clinton "a good man." "That conversation did occur 20 years ago,"...

CNN commentator and longtime Clinton ally Paul Begala said Wednesday that the U.S. should be debating whether to "blow up" agencies like the GRU in an apparent call for President Donald Trump to bomb Russia. Begala, who like many Democrats praised Barack Obama for mocking Mitt Romney's description of Russia as "our No. 1 geopolitical foe" in 2012, said on CNN that Russia is a "hostile foreign power" and the Trump administration should be "retaliating massively" for Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election in 2016. "We were and are under attack by a hostile foreign power, and they seem...

Democrats lost a special election for a congressional seat they have not held in decades, so some are calling for the head of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. Huh? Dumping Pelosi, who has devoted her professional life to Democratic values, would be like throwing the captain of your ship overboard when the sharks are circling. It only draws more sharks, but leaves you leaderless. The "Dump Pelosi" movement shines a light on some of the unloveliest instincts of some Democrats: self-loathing, scapegoating and a desire for quick fixes, rather than hard work. Sure, Pelosi is unpopular, but compared to what?...

Yesterday, CNN host Kate Bolduan had guests Amy Kremer and Paul Begala on to discuss President Trump’s claim that Trump Tower was wiretapped. Trump originally made this claim two days before this segment aired, so this had undoubtedly been hashed out before on CNN. But apparently, we needed another 9-minute long segment on this topic.Midway through the segment, Paul Begala stepped in to turn the discussion from Trump’s allegations to another claim. “What we need is a credible, independent special prosecutor—two-thirds of the American people want—to get to the bottom of how Russia helped elect Donald Trump. That’s the...