CNN’s Chalian: Biden’s Being ‘More Centrist’ on Crime, Immigration after Keeping ‘Left Wing’ ‘on Board’ Because He’s Prepping for 2024

On Wednesday’s “CNN Political Briefing” podcast, CNN Political Director David Chalian said that President Joe Biden has broken with some Democrats on crime and immigration “because Joe Biden and his team, preparing for a likely re-election campaign, also see the importance and the salience of crime and the border as issues” and that after Biden “may have been keeping sort of the left wing of his party on board in the first couple of years with some of his positioning on these issues,” Biden is now “sort of putting front and center a more centrist approach or more moderate Democrat approach to these issues.”

Chalian stated, “[C]rime and the border have had Joe Biden entangled with his own Democratic allies in something less than a unified fashion of late. And it’s pretty clear why. It is because Joe Biden and his team, preparing for a likely re-election campaign, also see the importance and the salience of crime and the border as issues that resonate with the American public. And you can see Biden, who may have been keeping sort of the left wing of his party on board in the first couple of years with some of his positioning on these issues, we’ve seen, in the last several months — I would say even a year — where Joe Biden is sort of putting front and center a more centrist approach or more moderate Democrat approach to these issues. We heard in the State of the Union a year ago how the President said, fund the police, not defund the police. And we’re now starting to see some potential immigration policy proposals floated by the administration that are definitely not welcome news to a lot of progressive Democrats.”

Later, Chalian noted that Biden opposed blocking the D.C. crime bill before flipping his position and that the administration has floated detaining families who cross the border illegally after ending the policy. And stated that “Biden is trying to get to a place that is going to be the most appealing to the broadest swath of the American electorate in advance of a potential re-election campaign. But it has put him crosswise with many in his party.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett