This seems like a worse own goal than “defund the police” as a slogan, best of intentions but the execution was so bad.
I’d put heavy money on Republicans running chunks of this interview hard during the run up to the midterms.
I have a sinking fear this will be one of those tragicomic moments of earnest, well intentioned progressives inadvertently helping trump, like when many sat out the 2024 election in a misguided attempt to somehow help Palestinians.
He didn’t directly state in the quotes that he disliked the DSA candidates, merely that planning a campaign was becoming more complex when you have to explicitly state policy stances which are divisive and next to impossible to actually be realized during their term, such as police abolition.
Of course, Fox News and The Hill took that and ran with it.