Mark Penn, a Democrat pollster and former advisor to Hillary Clinton, said that Joe Biden should pardon all non-violent defendants from the January 6 protests, and fulfill his promise to unite the country.
Speaking to Fox News, Penn, who served as an advisor for Hilary Clinton during her 2008 campaign, and worked with Bill Clinton during his time in office, explained that Biden has a severe polling problem, with Penn declaring that he has “rarely” seen numbers this bad for a President.
The president has the double-barreled problem of people are upset that the virus is continuing. But I think even more importantly, now that inflation has raged and therefore so few people think the economy is going in the right direction. As you know, when things are going badly, the ins get voted out.
Penn explained that the Biden administration would need to complete a “massive pivot” in order to “save the presidency” and come out on top in the midterms.
He suggested that Biden should “reach out and unify the country,” and pardon all defendants from the January 6 protests on Capitol Hill who were non-violent.
Ex-Clinton advisor Mark Penn said Biden should "unify" the country by pardoning peaceful J6 defendants.
"Maybe, on January 6, he should prosecute those who were violent, and pardon those who were non-violent, and bring the country together" pic.twitter.com/OOSyXi7lIs
— Jack Hadfield
(@JackHadders) January 27, 2022
In doing so, Biden would be fulfilling his promise from his inauguration last year. “Without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury,” he said at the time. “No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos,” declaring unity to be the “path forward.”
Instead, the White House is “not doing any of that,” Penn said.
“I’ve rarely seen the President lose basically his basic personal characteristic of being likeable. The economy turned, the main issue of the virus turned, and have immigration and crime on top of it. This is a really difficult situation for the most schooled of White Houses. This one seems to be ignoring it and plowing straight ahead.”