Democratic National Committee (DNC) Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta slammed his fellow vice chair, David Hogg, on Wednesday, disputing the reason the gun control activist has said is why they may need to run for their positions again.
Kenyatta argued in an interview on MSNBC that he has tried to ignore what Hogg has been saying recently to avoid party infighting and division, but Hogg’s statement after the DNC’s Credentials Committee voted in favor of holding a new vice chair election “pushed me over the edge.”
“David has a very casual relationship with the truth,” he told host Symone Sanders Townsend. “And he has not been truthful on so many points that have been raised on this show.”
The Pennsylvania state legislator added that he’s “frustrated” with the decision to hold the election again given that he received considerably more votes than necessary to clinch one of the vice chair positions, but he respects it.
“But David’s first statement out of the gate was, here’s the Democratic Party doing some maniacal thing to push me out because of what he’s doing with his PAC,” Kenyatta said. “David knows that that is not true.”
“And so for all of the people who have, like I had, really high hopes for what David could bring for this party and who are now looking at the message that he’s been pushing out and the emails that they have been getting from him about how he wants to reform the party, you have to be honest with people,” he added.
The comments came after the Credentials Committee voted on Monday to support nullifying the results of the February election that made Hogg and Kenyatta vice chairs. The decision came as a result of a complaint that a losing candidate for a vice chair position had filed months earlier challenging the procedure in which the election was held.
That candidate, Kalyn Free, argued that having a combined ballot for both positions rather than holding the elections separately violated the DNC’s rules, to which the committee agreed. A full vote of the DNC is necessary for a new election to be held.
But Hogg argued that the decision must be viewed in the context of the backlash he’s received for his group, Leaders We Deserve, calling for primary challenges to longtime Democratic incumbents serving in safe Democratic districts. He’s called for generational change among Democratic leaders and said he is not supporting challenges to those serving in battleground districts or who have adequately stood up to President Trump.
The move has sparked considerable pushback within the party, with DNC Chair Ken Martin calling for DNC officers to maintain neutrality in primaries.
Kenyatta noted that Hogg said the party is trying to oust him from his position, but the complaint was filed well before he signaled his group would push to primary incumbents. He said the reason this happened now is because the party has due process that allows losing candidates to submit appeals and for him and Hogg to respond.
“I know that this party has to change. It has to change in massive ways. And I did not run because I thought everything was going great. I ran because I thought that we needed to be a Democratic Party that, as I have said now, is focused on working people, working families, and how we’re going to make their lives better,” he said. “That’s what we should be doing. That’s what I have tried to do.”
Hogg told The Washington Post in an interview that he wouldn’t engage in a “back-and-forth about this” and that he doesn’t take what people say personally, “even if they try to make it personal.”
“This is purely about a strategic disagreement, and should be treated as such, because we’re all on the same side here. It’s about, how do we create the strongest Democratic Party possible?” he said.
