‘Big Problem,’ ‘Dead Broke’: CNN’s David Axelrod Offers Scathing Analysis of Biden Campaign After ‘Anemic Fourth Place Finish’

CNN panelists David Axelrod, Nia-Malika Henderson, and Van Jones offered a scathing assessment of former Vice President Joe Biden’s apparent fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.

Speaking after the Iowa Democratic Party released partial results on Tuesday that showed Biden badly trailing Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, and Elizabeth Warren, former Obama strategist Axelrod did not hold back.

“Biden has a big problem,” Axelrod said. “His campaign manager some time ago said they would be viable in 59% of the state, they expected to do much better and the big problem he has is not only the deficiencies that showed in his appeal, but he is dead broke and he needs to raise money. It’s hard to raise money off of an anemic fourth place finish. He needs to revive himself in New Hampshire or this firewall that everybody talks about in South Carolina may not just be there for him.”

Fellow panelist Henderson agreed and noted that some of Biden’s African-American supporters may abandon him if he stumbles again in New Hampshire.

“They sunk a lot of money into Iowa. They were telling people two or three weeks ago that they felt they would come in the top one or two or so and that obviously didn’t happen,” she said of the Biden campaign. “He likes to crow about polls, polls that show him beating Donald Trump, polls that show him viable in South Carolina, winning in South Carolina, doing well among black voters. I’ve been texting with some nervous black Democrats in the South. Do you want to have a candidate whose whole rationale is ‘I can do well in these states down the line and not do well in states like Iowa’?”

Van Jones then piled on.

“When you see these numbers and you see Joe Biden, 100% household name recognition probably on five continents, at 15 [percent], it does change your view of him,” Jones added, before making a not-so-subtle analogy involving the 78-year-old Biden’s age. “He might not do well in Iowa, he’ll make it up later. Now we’re living in the reality that he fell down these stairs and I don’t know how he gets up.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.