CNN commentator and ex-Obama official Van Jones argued in an appearance Tuesday that the jobs available to the Black community are "crappy," whatever economists and political strategists may say to the contrary.
"Facts and feelings are very different," Jones said in response to a recent report that consumer sentiment is at the highest level since 2021. "People keep telling me, ‘you’ve got great employment numbers in the Black community, and aren’t you happy?’ I’m like, yeah, but they’re crappy jobs."
President Biden has stepped up his efforts to win over Black voters, as a poll from November shows that 57% of Black voters disapprove of Biden's handling of the economy. Also, 56% of Black voters said they disapproved of Biden's attempts to reduce inflation.
In general, Biden's support among the Black community has dropped significantly in recent years. Fox News polling indicating his approval has slid 25% since 2021. It once stood at 87% approval, but that number declined to 62% in 2023.
Jones claimed that Biden had a much stronger reception among his base on the issue of abortion.
"People feel really, really pissed off about these horror stories of these women whose lives are at risk, who don’t have viable pregnancies, who have to be in front of judges, telling everything about themselves, traveling out of states and they don’t have money. These horror stories are going to drive numbers that people may not catch," Jones said.
The former Obama official added that Biden may "outperform" his polling numbers because of anger from Democrats over abortion.
"That’s part of why Democrats think that Biden may outperform his numbers. His numbers are terrible, but these stories are terrible," he said. "And people are not going to come to rescue Biden, they’re not going to rescue Harris, they’re going to try and rescue a bunch of American women who are at risk. That’s what I think."
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But Jones also said that Democratic voters are increasingly seeing backlash against illegal migrants as the crisis receives increased media attention in New York City and other blue strongholds.
"It’s cutting through now with the Democratic base as well because of the kind of tactic or stunt of sending a bunch of immigrants into blue states," Jones said of the debate over illegal immigration. "It’s destabilizing some of the politics in our own party."
"You have the New York mayor saying, ‘Look, I can’t handle all this stuff,' which is kind of the point the red state governors have been making for a while," he said.
