Hillary Clinton has added the Democratic National Committee to her enemies list. The former secretary of state and two-time presidential loser accused the DNC of handing her a shoddy and bankrupt data operation that contributed to her upset loss to Donald Trump. This shooting inside the ship has rankled Democrats, but DNC chairman and former Labor Secretary Tom Perez really doesn’t want to comment on whether she’s the leader of the party and co-chair Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) avoided offering remarks about the former secretary trashing the committee.
Yet, it was unavoidable. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, BBC’s Katty Kay asked about Clinton’s criticism, where Ellison tried to pivot to say that the DNC was moving forward, that Hillary Clinton was a really nice lady, and oh yeah—Trump is a monster. Co-host Mika Brezinzski wasn’t having any of it though:
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Yeah, I know it’s a lot of platitudes. I’m actually interested in information, though.
REP. ELLISON: It's not platitudes.
BRZEZINSKI: I mean she says it was bankrupt. She says it was totally disorganized. She says it was a complete mess. Is that the case?
KAY: And they didn't give her anything.
BRZEZINSKI: And they didn't give her anything. Is that true?
REP. ELLISON: Let me tell you, you know, we can't relitigate the past. You know --
BRZEZINSKI: Man, no.
REP. ELLISON: But the truth is – no, seriously, let me finish my point. The truth is that Trump is getting rid, is abandoning climate action. He is taking away people's protection for pre-existing conditions. He is trying to ban people based on their religion. There is no time for us to go back and try to figure out who shot John. We’ve got to figure out what went wrong so we can fix it and then move forward in an aggressive way.
BRZEZINSKI: I just don't know what you said --
REP. ELLISON: That's where I’m at.
BRZEZINSKI: -- at all.
CNN’s Chris Cuomo interviewed Perez and he also deployed countermeasures over whether Hillary, a self-described member of the resistance against the Trump agenda, is the face and leader of the party. Perez said that the party has a lot of leaders out there.
It’s part of the problem that Democrats face, which Naftali Bendavid of The Wall Street Journal brought up with CNN’s John King. Clinton is a party heavyweight, but she’s easily made into a villain, she’s not popular, and she could be dead weight to Democrats heading into the 2018 midterms; a reason why many would rather she just went away. But that’s not happening any time soon.
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