Former head of the Democratic National Committee Donna Brazile joins Chris Andrae on KBOO to discuss her new book Hacks.
In the fallout of the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee--and as chaos threatened to consume the party's convention--Democrats turned to a familiar figure to right the ship: Donna Brazile. Known to millions from her frequent TV appearances, she was no stranger to high stakes and dirty opponents, and the longtime Democratic strategist had a reputation in Washington as a one-stop shop for fixing sticky problems.
What Brazile found at the DNC was unlike anything she had experienced before--and much worse than is commonly known. The party was beset by infighting, scandal, and hubris, while reeling from a brazen and wholly unprecedented attempt by a foreign power to influence the presidential election. Plus, its candidate, Hillary Clinton, faced an opponent who broke every rule in the political playbook.
from the New Yorker:
The first reactions to Donna Brazile’s new book, “Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-Ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House,” might best be described as frantic—a tone that was defined by the timing as well as by the players involved. The book appeared on November 7th, Election Day, and, a few days before, Brazile, who had served as the interim head of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 Presidential campaign, had published an advance excerpt in Politico about her investigation into whether the D.N.C. had “rigged” the nomination process in favor of Hillary Clinton. It described her calling Senator Bernie Sanders, on September 7, 2016, after first lighting candles and listening to gospel music, and telling him, “I did find the cancer.” That inspired this tweet from President Trump: “The real story on Collusion is in Donna B’s new book. Crooked Hillary bought the DNC & then stole the Democratic Primary from Crazy Bernie!” That’s not quite what Brazile wrote; she was making a more nuanced point about the corrosive quality of the campaign’s financial relations with the Party. But Democrats had a fiery response, too, some because they saw the charges as unjust, some because the charges affirmed their disappointment, and others because they believed that, whatever Clinton’s flaws might have been, Brazile’s account pointlessly and unfairly divided the Party’s forces just as close races were being fought around the country, particularly the gubernatorial race in Virginia. Brazile said that her critics could “go to Hell.” The fury dissipated, somewhat, when those elections went very well for the Democrats. Brazile wasn’t a spoiler, after all. But she does have a story to tell that the Democrats shouldn’t dismiss, if they intend to win the White House in 2020.
- KBOO