David Axelrod Calls Trump’s RNC Speech ‘The First Good Thing’ For Democrats in Weeks

While Republicans celebrated the formal nomination of former President Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention, just days after he survived an assassination attempt, the news for Democrats only got worse. But David Axelrod said that there was finally light at the end of the tunnel after Trump’s rambling acceptance speech.

After Trump’s speech wrapped up after midnight on the east coast — clocking in at a feature-length 1 hour and 32 minutes , as CNN anchor Jake Tapper pointed out — CNN provided their analysis, including not just the record-setting duration, but the rambling nature, Trump’s inability to stick to the script (or the truth ), and what it meant for the 2024 presidential race now.

Axelrod, who served as an advisor to former President Barack Obama , has been largely critical of President Joe Biden and has said he can’t win reelection in November. And while that perspective may remain unchanged, Axelrod said Trump’s speech was “the first good thing” to happen to Democrats in weeks:

So my friend Scott Jennings was hopping out of his seat before the speech because he held up the excerpts and said, “You wondered whether he could rise to the moment. Well, he’s going to rise to the moment.” It just turns out that he only he read the words on these pages and then spent probably an hour in aggregate riffing.

And so people, I’m sure, responded very positively to his appeals to unity that were written on the teleprompter. And then he just ripped the bejesus out of everybody that he was — all his political enemies and so on.

I have to tell you that, Chris Wallace said this, this is the first good thing that’s happened to Democrats in the last three weeks. I mean, this, this really reminded everyone why Donald Trump is fundamentally unpopular outside this room.

Before Axelrod’s commentary, Wallace noted :

Frankly, it was a long speech. It was a rambling speech. It was a speech by an older man. And I couldn’t help but think that the people that are going to be happiest tonight are not the people at Trump headquarters, but the people, the Democrats, maybe at Biden headquarters, maybe at the headquarters of other people who are going to replace Joe Biden. But, Jake, we have ourselves a presidential campaign again.

Commentator Van Jones also added: “So, that was a mess. That was just a big mess. Trump dodged a bullet on Saturday, and Democrats dodged a bullet tonight.”

Watch the video above via CNN.