DNC Civil War: David Hogg’s Fellow Vice Chair Warns Democrats ‘He’s Not Being Honest With You’
(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
DNC Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta fumed at his fellow Vice Chair David Hogg while on Karen Hunter’s SiriusXM show this week, saying he’s “pissed” he has to run again and called out what he called Hogg’s many “lies.”
Kenyatta, who was elected alongside Hogg, had his election voided earlier in the week over a procedural issue as backlash against Hogg’s plan to primary incumbent Democrats has roiled many within the party.
“Am I pissed that now I’m being asked to run again after getting the most votes of anybody who ran for Vice Chair? Yes, I’m pissed,” Kenyatta told Hunter during the lengthy interview, but also later added, “I can announce here on your show that I welcome that new election.”
Kenyatta continued and pulled no punches in explaining how his relationship wth Hogg fell apart. “Now let me just make two final points about David’s lies and what really got me upset. This challenge brought by the person who lost the election, was filed in February,” Kenyatta said, referring to challenge that resulted in his election being voided. He added:
Because of the timeline, you have to bring the challenge, right, and then we get a certain number of days to respond. She gets a certain number of days to respond to our response and all those things. It’s boring, but it drags out the process. And so that means that a challenge she made in February was not heard until May.
David’s first press release out was, “See, the DNC is hyper-charging some something to get me out.” And then he had the nerve and the audacity after sending out that press release to send me a text message and say, “Oh, hey Malcolm, I’m so sorry you got caught up, you know, in this Let’s talk soon.” And I responded to him to basically say, “How dare you try to text me privately and say you’re so sorry. And then publicly you are lying about the timeline and making yourself the victim in a scenario where you were never the victim.”
Listen, as a Black man in America and in this country, I know exactly what it means to live in a country and to be in a party that doesn’t always love me back. But I decided to take on this role because I know what we can be. And because I know at the end of the day, if we are going to stop fascism, if we are going to stop all the things that I laid out, we need a strong Democratic party. And I welcome the opportunity to take on the hard work to do that.
And that is what I have done for 103 days. And 103 days since I’ve been in this role, I’ve traveled over 20,000 miles for this party. Been to eight states, held over three dozen events, including multiple fundraisers that I’m not even including in the events. David Hogg has spent his time going on TV bashing the Democratic Party. Now listen, to be clear, the Democratic Party has reasons that we should be upset. Reasons that I’m upset, but spending every day on TV saying we suck is not changing the party. Doing the boring work of changing our rules, the way that Ken has moved forward, and people should understand this. I know that a lot of your listeners don’t know Ken Martin, but Ken Martin was literally the person who led the reform package when Bernie and Hillary had their big blow up in the 2016 race.
And you had all these people saying the party put their finger on the scale for Hillary. It wasn’t fair. Ken Martin is literally the person that brought forward the package to change the way super delegates are counted at our conventions, to democratize the process. And as chair, he put forward an almost 20-point plan of doing things that structurally change how the Democratic Party does business, including Karen, giving up his authority to appoint members to critical committees. There’s been no chair in the history of this party that has actively said, I want less power and I want people to vote. No chair has ever done that.
View this post on Instagram
Kenyatta went on to argue that Hogg has eclipsed DNC Chair Ken Martin with his own plans and constant media attention, “This chair is doing that and we’re not allowed to talk about it because David Hogg has taken everything that we’ve done and made it some attack on him.” He concluded by warning fans of Hogg that he’s not being “honest” with them.
“And then he goes out into the press and tells mistruths and half-truths. And as I said, I’ve said nothing about it for weeks and weeks and weeks, but I’m saying something about it now. And if you are somebody who says, you know, “I like that David Hogg is fighting the party,” you should also know that David Hogg is not being honest with you,” Kenyatta warned.
View this post on Instagram
Watch the clip above.
