White House senior adviser David Axelrod yesterday doubled down on President Obama’s comments about “sanctimonious” and “purist” progressives who oppose his tax cut deal with the Republicans, telling them that “you can focus on what you don’t like, and cut your nose off to spite your face, and that would be the wrong thing to do.”
Axelrod was on State Of The Union yesterday, where host Candy Crowley asked him about the negative reaction to the deal and to the President’s scolding of progressives who opposed it. Axelrod said: “I don’t think you could ever say you’re selling anyone down the river when you’re talking about tax cuts that are going to make significant difference.”
Crowley asked if he thought the deal could have been handled better, and Axelrod replied: “We handled it as best as we could given the time frame that we had. I’m not looking for style points here, I’m looking for progress for the American people.”
Here’s the video — the talk about liberals comes at about the 5:30 mark:
Jillian Rayfield
Jillian Rayfield is a Reporter/Blogger for TPM, and started as a News Intern in May 2009. She graduated from Cornell University in May 2008 with a degree in Film, and worked as a Research Assistant for a market research firm in London in between.
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