Some advisers close to President-elect Joe Biden are reportedly frustrated over incoming deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon’s Glamour interview in which she referred to congressional Republicans as “fuckers”, Axios reports.
Some donors want O’Malley Dillon to apologize to Biden and congressional Republicans for her comments, with one telling Axios: “For those of us who, from Day One, bought into Biden’s calls for civility and a return to normalcy, this isn’t just beyond the pale — it’s plain stupid.”
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But there are others in the president-elect’s camp who do not disagree with O’Malley Dillon’s comments, they disagree with her decision to say them in public and are worried that Republicans could use the words of the high level Biden staffer to cast doubt on Biden’s sincerity.
“Could she have used a different adjective, sure,” one Biden official told Axios. “But if you know Jen…she is real, she is authentic, she says it how it is.”
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Incoming White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield on Wednesday took to Twitter to defend O’Malley Dillon writing: “So @jomalleydillon would be the first to tell you her mom doesn’t approve of the spicy language but I would be the first to tell you that the point she was making in this conversation with @GlennonDoyle is spot on: unity and healing are possible — and we can get things done.”
Throughout the primary Biden argued that his decades long relationship with Mitch McConnell and other Republicans in the Senate would allow him to productively work with them as president.
In the Glamour interview O’Malley Million defended Biden from criticisms be received from the left over his insistence that he could reach across the aisle to work with Republicans.
“In the primary, people would mock him, like, “You think you can work with Republicans?” I’m not saying they’re not a bunch of fuckers. Mitch McConnell is terrible. But this sense that you couldn’t wish for that, you couldn’t wish for this bipartisan ideal? He rejected that,” Dillon said “From start to finish, he set out with this idea that unity was possible, that together we are stronger, that we, as a country, need healing, and our politics needs that too.”
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O’Malley Dillon is optimistic that the Biden administration will be able to work with McConnell to get things done.
Things are off to a rocky start so far. It took McConnell six weeks to recognize him as the president-elect.
