Biden aides downplay classified document scandal as 'DC noise': Report
CNN's Edward-Issac Dovere said Thursday that the scandal did not change the president's 2024 plans
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}President Biden's aides seem to be downplaying the discovery of classified documents at the president's home and in the Penn Biden Center, calling it "DC noise" as they prepare for 2024.
People close to Biden told CNN that the scandal was just Washington's "elite" making "DC noise" and that the situation was likely just their latest obsession.
CNN reporter Edward-Issac Dovere wrote that people close to the president mocked those who predicted that the scandal would be bad "optics" for Biden.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Look back from shortly before the president launched his campaign to now, the accuracy rate of pundits’ negative predictions about him or his strategies is dismal," Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson, told the outlet.
WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 16: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a bilateral meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office of the White House on September 16, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Pete Marovich-Pool/Getty Images)
Bates also told CNN that the scandal would not affect his decision or the timing of his expected 2024 announcement.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Biden responds to these kind of DC pundit crises with an honesty and perspective that’s more in line with the average American," Greg Schultz, a former campaign manager for Biden, told CNN.
Dovere joined Don Lemon and Kaitlan Collins on Thursday and told the "CNN This Morning" hosts that Biden's team intends to stick to their plan for 2024.
"That small circle of people that I’ve been trying to report and talk to, say their plan was to go with the re-election announcement. Nothing is finalized but that’s the plan, sometime after the State of the Union, which as I said is on February 7th, and that the plan hasn’t changed, the timeline, time frame hasn’t changed here, despite what we’ve seen in the news the last couple of days about the document situation. They are full steam ahead ready to go and not getting distracted by what’s going on here," he told the CNN hosts.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}US President Joe Biden smiles during a news conference in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Dovere also emphasized that people close to Biden believe in the president's ability to "get through" things.
"He gets through things that you know, coming in fourth in Iowa, fifth in New Hampshire, gets through the legislative agenda falling apart and to then to the place where he is now," he said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}U.S. President Joe Biden walks to speak to reporters as he and first lady Jill Biden leave the White House and walk to Marine One on the South Lawn on December 27, 2022 in Washington, DC. The Bidens are spending the New Years holiday in St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands. (Anna Moneymaker)
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Biden's attorneys "unexpectedly" discovered the first batch of classified documents on Nov. 2 at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.
The next batch of classified documents was discovered at the president's Wilmington, Delaware, home towards the end of December.