NBC Host Asks Cory Booker Point Blank If Dems’ Favorite Talking Points Are ‘Effective’ After Election Loss

NBC host Kristen Welker questioned Democratic New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker Sunday on whether his party’s increasingly popular talking point about America supposedly being in a “constitutional crisis” is a winning strategy.

Towards the end of former Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign against President Donald Trump, she and fellow Democrats ramped up their rhetoric, claiming Trump was not only a “threat to democracy,” but also a “fascist,” comparing him to Adolf Hitler. On “Meet the Press,” Welker pressed Booker on the Democrats’ new talking point, playing a clip of multiple lawmakers repeating the phrase “constitutional crisis” before reminding him that similar rhetoric did not win them the November election. 

“Some of your colleagues have been saying that America is in a ‘constitutional crisis,’” Welker said. “Senator, as you know, Democrats just lost an election, largely with the closing argument accusing Trump of being a threat to the democracy. Is that the most effective messaging right now?”

“I think the most effective messaging is talking about the crisis that’s happening to Americans,” Booker responded.

Welker then intervened, stating that based on Booker’s response, the party “shouldn’t be talking about a constitutional crisis.” However, Booker pushed back, saying the “crisis” is occurring “now,” and calling out the Trump administration’s budget and personnel cuts across the federal government.

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“No — I’m saying we should be talking about what’s happening to Americans. I had one of the biggest hospital leaders in my state call me up and talk about the cancer research that’s now in crisis, literally ruining years of research, literally having to take cancer treatments away from people, cutting edge breakthrough treatments,” Booker said.

“What’s crazy is crisis when you have planes falling from the sky and you’re cutting FAA folks. It is a crisis when nuclear regulatories who are keeping our safe regulators are being cut,” Booker continued.

The New Jersey lawmaker’s claims about the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) cuts being linked to “planes falling from the sky,” echoed his fellow party member Democratic California Rep. Norma Torres who held Trump responsible for the fatal aircraft collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in January. In February the FAA fired less than 400 employees from its workforce of 45,000, according to Reuters, though Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has repeatedly confirmed that positions critical to aviation safety like air traffic controllers and inspectors have been protected.

Booker went on to highlight claims from farmers complaining to him about the lack of federal funding, before focusing on the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) Elon Musk and his team.

“Look, all this talk about USAID. I have visited people on the front line stopping infectious diseases from coming here. To have scientists in dangerous areas like Kampala suddenly not be able to get their access to their cell phone, their emails,” Booker said. “And be cut off by a president and Elon Musk or in a hand handed incompetent way, cutting funding that makes no sense and ultimately won’t make a difference on our deficit because the president wants to rack it up to give tax cuts to the wealthiest and create even bigger deficits in our country.”

Since Musk’s announcement on an X space discussion about his and Trump’s agreement to overhaul the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Democrats have protested and pushed back against Musk’s involvement in cleaning out government waste.

Reports have revealed that some international programs not only aided left-wing social engineering, such as LGBT advocacy, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and tech censorship, wasting billions of taxpayer dollars. Regardless, Democrats have continued to question the cuts, with some lawmakers claiming the move of USAID to the leadership of Secretary of State Marco Rubio was unlawful.

Democrats’ messaging, however, has appeared to struggle since Trump’s historic election win, as he secured not only the Electoral College but also the popular vote and the swing states. With Harris losing once-key Democratic voting blocs, some party members have blamed the social justice policies that the left has been pushing, while others, like Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have blamed voters for not “understanding” what their party has done for them.

Echoing Schumer’s sentiments from January, the Democratic National Committee’s new chairman, Ken Martin, told The New York Times on Feb. 2, after his win for the position, that the struggle he saw within the party was a “messaging” and “brand problem.”

“The policies that we support and the message that we have is not wrong,” Martin told the outlet. “It is a messaging problem and a brand problem. Those voters are not connecting our policies with their lives.”