The Democratic National Committee’s internal chaos shows no signs of slowing down—just ask the chair.
DNC chair Ken Martin accused vice chair David Hogg of undercutting his leadership and confessed he’d considered quitting his position during a Zoom call with party leaders, a leaked recording has revealed.
“No one knows who the hell I am, right? I’m trying to get my sea legs underneath of me and actually develop any amount of credibility so I can go out there and raise the money and do the job I need to to put ourselves in a position to win,” Martin said in the recording, which was obtained by Politico.
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“I don’t think you intended this,” Martin told Hogg on the May 15 Zoom meeting, “but you essentially destroyed any chance I have to show the leadership that I need to. So it’s really frustrating.”
Martin, 51, has been grappling with an intraparty feud ignited when Hogg, 25, announced that his organization, Leaders We Deserve, intends to spend $20 million backing primary challengers to what he called “ineffective” Democratic incumbents in safe blue districts.
Martin won a contested leadership election in February and has been tasked with getting the Democratic party back on its feet after crushing election defeats in November. But he admitted the challenges of his job have left him demoralized.
“I’ll be very honest with you, for the first time in my 100 days on this job… the other night I said to myself for the first time, I don’t know if I wanna do this anymore,” he said in the meeting, which was attended by approximately 10 DNC officers, according to Politico.
In a statement to Politico, however, Martin said, “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I took this job to fight Republicans, not Democrats,” he added. “As I said when I was elected, our fight is not within the Democratic Party, our fight is and has to be solely focused on Donald Trump and the disastrous Republican agenda. That’s the work that I will continue to do every day.”
Malcom Kenyatta, a second vice chair who was also on the Zoom meeting, came to Martin’s defense, as did other party officers who were on the call.
“Breaking news: a human being had a frustrating day at work. That’s all Ken expressed on that call,” he said, according to Politico.
In response to Hogg’s divisive pledge to try to oust Democrats he believes are “asleep at the wheel,” Martin has attempted to pressure him into signing a neutrality pledge. At the same time, a DNC panel has voted to advance a challenge to Hogg and Kenyatta’s election over alleged rule violations and concerns about gender equity.
After the vote, Hogg said it was “impossible to ignore the broader context of my work to reform the party which loomed large over this vote” and that the “DNC has pledged to remove me, and this vote has provided an avenue to fast-track that effort.”
