‘He’s Not Helping’: Ex-CNN Analyst Says Biden’s Call To ‘Lock’ Trump ‘Up’ Is ‘Absolutely Bad For Kamala Harris’

Former CNN political analyst Chris Cillizza said Wednesday that President Joe Biden’s comment about having to “lock [former President Donald Trump] up” is damaging to Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign.

Biden made the “lock him up” remark Tuesday at New Hampshire’s Democratic National Committee office, referencing the tight race between Trump and Harris and claiming the former president believes he is immune from “physically eliminating” threats. Cillizza, on his YouTube channel, said while he does not believe Biden is deliberately undermining Harris, his comment will likely give Trump a boost in his efforts to defeat her. (RELATED: Former Clinton Pollster Says Harris’ ‘Inauthenticity’ Is ‘The Larger Problem She Faces’ In Election)

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“Now, Biden, probably realizing what a dumb thing he had just said, added, ‘Politically lock him up. Lock him out, that’s what we have to do.’ Yeah, that’s the ticket,” Cillizza said. “Uh, come on, man, like we, ‘Politically lock him up,’ what the hell does that mean? When the president of the United States says, ‘We gotta lock him up’ about the former president of the United States, who has premised almost his entire political life on the idea that the Democrats and the ‘deep state’ are trying to lock him up, I mean, it’s really not good.”

“If the Trump campaign is smart, this will be in a Trump campaign ad. It affirms for the Republican base everything that Donald Trump is saying — that secretly the Democrats, from Joe Biden on down, including Kamala Harris, are just out to get him, right? He has said this for years,” he added. “And when the president of the United States says, ‘We gotta lock him up,’ and then says, ‘Politically lock him up,’ yeah, it’s just not good. Look, do I think this ends the race? No, of course not. Do I think Trump would be smart to put it in an ad? Yes, as I said, I do.”

Four criminal indictments were brought against Trump in 2023 involving alleged election interference and mishandling of classified documents. Trump repeatedly characterized the Manhattan case against him as “election interference,” referring to it as a “Biden witch hunt” and the “Biden Case.”

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“I do not think Joe Biden is running a secret conspiracy to make Kamala Harris lose, but I do think that when you say things like ‘We gotta lock him up,’ ‘gotta lock him up’ about Donald Trump two weeks before an election, it affirms everything Donald Trump has been arguing,” Cillizza said later. “It makes the Republican base even more rabid to turn out, right? As if they weren’t rabid enough — they’re pretty rabid to turn out. They’re going to be even more rabid, so he’s not helping.”

“I get it, but like, he needs to not really do anything like this again. Like, it is absolutely bad for Kamala Harris, and I bet when her campaign read the ‘We gotta lock him up’ thing, they were like, ‘Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe,’” he added.

Biden presently has no intentions of appearing alongside his vice president on the campaign trail before Nov. 5, three White House officials and three Harris campaign officials recently told NBC News.

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