Biden challenger Dean Phillips gets his shot at primetime interview and it goes pretty poorly

Minnesota Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips is running in the Democratic Party’s primary to try and unseat incumbent President Joe Biden. The launch of his campaign has been met with dismal polling numbers, coming in at 6% support, which trails Marianne Williamson at 8%, who in turn trails Biden by more than 50 percentage points.

On Tuesday, Phillips’ campaign made a push, releasing attack ads against Biden and sitting down with CNN’s Abby Phillip for a primetime interview. It didn’t go particularly well. The CNN host asked Phillips about the backlash he’s received from a recently published interview with The Atlantic, where he obliquely questioned Vice President Kamala Harris’ competency to be president.

Phillips’ response was to try on what seemed to be an attempt at a shoot-from-the-hip catchphrase, saying, “I'm the one who says—I'm the one who says the quiet part out loud. I think that's pretty well documented,” but the CNN host pressed him as to why he would repeat these “comments.”

The man who just told everyone that it is “pretty well documented” that he is “the one who says the quiet part out loud” explained, “I do not recall saying those words. I recall those words being shared with me, and saying that’s what people have been saying.”