Pantheon: A temple dedicated to all the gods.
On Monday’s New Day, CNN wasted no time this morning in elevating Joe Biden to near-godlike status for doing what Democrats do best: spending unimaginable amounts of taxpayer money, and raising taxes. CNN analyst Ryan Lizza celebrated the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” as putting Biden in the “pantheon” of greats.
“For history, I think it’s a pretty big deal. You know, if you add up those seven pieces of legislation, it’s a $3.5 trillion agenda that Biden and the Democrats have passed since early last year. There’s really nothing like that in terms of that scale. You have to go back to – depending on how you define these things – to LBJ. So, I think for history, Biden – I don’t think there’s much debate anymore, he is an enormously consequential president and just judging him by his legislative agenda, you know, he’s sort of in that modern pantheon now.”
Lizza also reported his conversation with Biden’s pollster Jon Angelone, who has “completely changed his tune” from the grim view of Democrat prospects he held back in April. Now, led by the modern-day deity LBJ, he thinks the Dems have a “fighting chance” to limit their losses in the House, and actually keep the Senate.
Compare and contrast Lizza’s deification of Biden with the loathsome way he treated Donald Trump when he was president. In 2020, our Tim Graham caught Lizza asking Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany:
“Does President Trump believe that it was a good thing that the South lost the Civil War?” And when the official count of coronavirus deaths reached 100,000, he asked her, “What does the White House view as the number of dead Americans where you can say that you successfully defeated this pandemic?”
Note: over 600,000 Americans have died of Covid during Biden’s watch. Don’t hold your breath for Lizza putting a similarly contemptible question to Karine Jean-Pierre.
On New Day, CNN political analyst Ryan Lizza saying the passage of the huge Democrat tax and spend “Inflation Reduction Act” puts Biden in the “pantheon” of modern presidents was sponsored in part by Golden Corral, Booking.com, Amazon, and Sling.
Here’s the transcript.
CNN
New Day
8/8/22
6:00 am EDTJOHN BERMAN: Let’s get right to Capitol Hill where they were up all night Saturday into Sunday, in marathon session, but the Senate did pass the Inflation Reduction Act. Jessica Dean is there. Jessica, what is in this big piece of legislation?
JESSICA DEAN: Good morning to both of you. Yeah, this is a big, big win for Senate Democrats who frankly, John and Brianna, they didn’t know that they were going to get to this point. This almost collapsed many, many times over the last several months. So to get to yesterday when this bill actually passed on the Senate floor, there were a lot of cheering – there was a lot of cheering from the democratic side, a lot of hugs, people very excited to see this legislation passed on the Democratic side of the Senate. So, yes, to get into what’s in it, you mentioned those climate provisions, and that’s big, because this represents the biggest investment in climate that we have seen come out of the Senate ever. $369 billion, they’re hoping to curb carbon emissions by 40% by the year 2030, there’s a lot of incentives in there for renewable energy and other provisions.
There’s also a number of health care provisions, including allowing Medicare to negotiate the prices of some drugs, extending those Affordable Care Act subsidies for about three more years, and also capping out-of-pocket costs for Medicare at $2,000.
And then to pay for all of this, are some new tax provisions as well, including a 15% minimum tax on the country’s largest corporations.
. . .
BRIANNA KEILAR: Joining us now is Leigh Ann Caldwell, the author of the Washington Post’s Early 202 newsletter, Ryan Lizza, CNN political analyst as well as chief Washington correspondent for Politico. He is also co-author of the Politico Playbook. Okay, so Ryan, just put this into context for us, what this means, how big this is.
RYAN LIZZA: Well, for history, I think it’s a pretty big deal. You know, if you add up those seven pieces of legislation, it’s a $3.5 trillion agenda that Biden and the Democrats have passed since early last year. There’s really nothing like that in terms of that scale. You have to go back to – depending on how you define these things – to LBJ.
So I think, for history Biden – I don’t think there’s much debate anymore, he is an enormously consequential president. And just judging him by his legislative agenda, you know, he’s sort of in that modern pantheon now.
The short term is a different question. You know, will this translate into an improved political environment for Democrats? I interviewed the president’s campaign pollster, Jon Angelone, yesterday, and in April he was saying that this was the worst political environment for Democrats that he’,d seen in 30 years in the business. He’s completely changed his tune on that now and because of this legislative agenda that Democrats can now run on, you know, he thinks they have a fighting chance to hold their losses in the House, and as a lot of analysts believe, actually keep the Senate.
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