PSA: MUST WATCH- DNC chair GRILLED in HEATED interview

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0:00 Ken Martin, thanks for doing this. Yeah, thanks for having me back on,
0:03 John. It was great to see you the other night at the Grinder party of all parties. It was amazing.
0:08 I know. I wish I hadn't run out of alcohol by the time I arrived, but that's neither here nor there. Quick bit of context for listeners. This all came about because you expressed some
0:15 frustration about criticism of the DNC coming from our direction. So, I appreciate you coming on to talk about it directly. Um, I'll just say upfront,
0:25 we share the goal of making sure Democrats win everywhere, especially the White House in 2028. I also very much understand you've got one of the hardest
0:33 jobs in politics that you took at an especially tough time for the party. But I do want to press you on some specific things because I think the stakes are too high not to. Does that sound fair?
0:42 Sounds great, John. Thank you. I appreciate it.
0:44 So, I want to start with the 2024 autopsy, um, which you call an afteraction review. When you won the chairmanship in February of 25, you
0:52 criticized the DNC's refusal to release their 2016 autopsy as exactly what not to do. You said, quote, "Was there any
1:00 utility in doing that?" and then promised your 2024 autopsy would be different. Your exact quote was, "Of course, it will be released." Why did you change your mind on that? Well,
1:09 look, I mean, what I said all along,
1:11 even when I ran for this position, is that we were going to focus on the things that will help us win the upcoming election, right? Making sure
1:19 that we learn the right lessons that could help inform our victories. And that's what we've done. We said this when we uh sent out the press release
1:28 back in November saying we weren't going to release the report. We were going to actually keep our focus on those lessons. And we release those lessons.
1:35 We continue to do that. Uh, and it's important for me, uh, instead of naval gazing and looking backwards and, uh,
1:42 trying to relitigate 2024. I don't know about you, John, but I don't have a time machine. I don't think you do. No one does. So, we can't change what happened
1:49 in 24. The only thing we can do is actually change what happens in the future, including the 26 election cycle,
1:55 28 and beyond. That means we do need to learn the lessons. We need to make sure they help inform um, our decisions that we're making. And we've been releasing
2:03 those. We released them just a couple months ago in our uh playbook which uh if you if you want to look at that go to
2:10 dnc.org/playbook and you can get a example of some of the lessons. We've been releasing them with um our donors and with activists and
2:18 party leaders. We've been talking about what those lessons are and we've actually been putting those lessons into action and so it's not completely accurate to say that we didn't release
2:27 that. Where we're keeping our focus is on the lessons that can actually help us win. But um on this show in August, you told me this about releasing the review.
2:36 Quote, "We have to do it to give people who invested so much time, energy, and money a sense of what happened and why we lost." Correct.
2:45 Especially why we lost. So what changed between August and December? I understand there are lessons, but those are not the full report. Why not release
2:53 the full report? What's in the report that you wouldn't want first to publicize? Yeah, there's no smoking gun in the report and I know that's that's
3:00 what everyone's so eager to learn. The smoking gun. Guess what, John?
3:04 But if there's... but if there's no smoking gun, why wouldn't you just release it then?
3:07 Because we want to keep the focus on the lessons because what ends up happening here is that uh people of course want to weaponize the report in a way to look
3:16 backwards to point fingers, place blame in a way that actually doesn't keep us focused on the upcoming election. But instead, uh, the naval gazing of focus
3:24 focusing backwards, um, actually takes us backwards. We're 189 days from this election. John, what we don't need to be
3:32 focused on is actually relitigating 2024. What we need to do is learn the lessons of 24 in the years preceding
3:39 that can help us win this upcoming election. That's why we've been releasing them. That's why we've been focused in on actually putting those
3:46 lessons into action. And there's nothing that I told you in August that is inaccurate. We've been sharing those lessons out with donors. We've been
3:54 talking about this with party leaders and activists and others and organizations and campaigns. It's no surprise to And I get I get it. I get
4:03 why people are obsessed with it because there's various groups and organizations and people who think there's some sort of smoking gun in there. Guess what,
4:10 John? In the third closest presidential election in the last 100 years,
4:14 everything mattered. There's nothing that didn't impact that election. But why did why did you uh spend the money
4:21 uh going to 50 states, doing all these interviews, doing all this stuff if and and doing this report in the first place
4:28 if you weren't going to res release the full results of it? Like why I don't get why just you and some of the senior DNC
4:36 people get to see it but not most of the DNC members who are uh you know state party chairs. I mean, you know, more
4:44 than a dozen DNC members told NBC just the other week they want it released,
4:47 including Congresswoman Dia Ramirez and North and North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton. Um, and Anderson said, quote, "Genuinely, what
4:56 did you all find that we did not how did you answer that question?
4:59 We what we found is the things we've been telling telling them, both Anderson, Dia, other folks who have concerns about it. We've shared all of
5:07 the lessons with them, right? And so again, I think John, the reality is you're proving my point here, right?
5:13 People are obsessed about this in a way that uh continues to turn them away from wanting to focus on the lessons and in
5:21 instead thinking that there's some sort of smoking gun in here that's going to give them the one single reason that Kla
5:28 Harris lost the election or the one single thing that we should have done differently that's going to actually help us win in the future. There is no
5:36 one single thing that cost Kamla the election. There is no one single thing that we can do to help um us win the upcoming election. There's a number of
5:44 lessons for sure that will help us win in 26 and beyond. Uh but again, I understand what you're saying, John.
5:52 We'll just have to agree to disagree on this because uh you know, we have already started to put those lessons into action. I'm proud of the results of
6:00 what we've seen over the last year and a half uh since I've been elected. uh we have significant wind at our back and we're going to continue to move forward
6:08 and we're going to continue to put those lessons we've learned into action and I hope others will start to do the same.
6:14 Yeah. I'm just trying to figure out because it doesn't it certainly doesn't seem like anyone's looking for one single silver bullet because it's a 200page report. So I feel like on a
6:23 200page report there's a lot of lessons for everyone to take. And if you're going to operationalize it, then I think the question is like are you
6:31 operationalizing it on behalf of people who um who didn't actually get to see the report? So like do they know what
6:39 they're agreeing to when they oper operationalize lessons from the report if they haven't been able to read the report? John, you're proving the point. What's the point?
6:47 Point is the the the the obsession on the report without actually um uh focusing in on the lessons. People
6:55 believe there's something there's some sort of magic silver bullet in there that's going to solve all of our ills at the Democratic party. There's not. And I
7:04 understand I don't think I don't think there's going to be a magic silver bullet,
7:07 though. Who Who thinks that? No one thinks it's that's a such a No one thinks there's a magic silver bullet.
7:11 It's a 200page report. You interviewed people in 50 states. You spent a lot of donor money on it. I think people are probably wondering money on it. We didn't spend a lot of
7:18 donor money on that. And and that's just inaccurate.
7:21 You spent a couple hundred thousand dollars on it, right? No. No, we did not. It was a free report.
7:26 We did not spend a couple hundred,000 on that. The person and and people who were involved in it were not paid uh to do this work. And so I will just say that's
7:34 that's inaccurate, John. So I appreciate I'm not sure where you would even get that number. And so do you have some some sort of record that shows we spent any money on that?
7:43 I've seen I've seen reporting that you that you did spend money on it. Yeah, for sure. Okay. Well, that's that's inaccurate.
7:48 Okay. The person who has to do this is an unpaid adviser to the DNC. And so I appreciate, listen, I appreciate where it's coming from, John, but let's just
7:56 trade in facts on this, right? The reality is is we did talk to um you know, hundreds of people. It was an exhaustive um uh exercise to really get
8:05 at what are those key lessons. And I want to be very clear, there's nothing that changed from what I said on the campaign trail to now, which is
8:13 on the when you were on the campaign trail and you talked about definitely releasing an autopsy and criticized the DNC for not releasing an autopsy in 2016. In your mind, in your mind, you
8:22 thought, I'm going to do one, but only release certain lessons and not the full report.
8:26 No, what I said at the time is exactly what I've been saying now, which is we have to focus on the things that help us win the future elections. We have to
8:33 focus on those lessons. We have to do this exercise, by the way, of doing uh of conducting this analysis so that we actually learn what happened not just in 24, but in the years preceding that,
8:44 John. And so that's where our focus is.
8:46 I mean it, you know, the the challenge is is, you know, think about this as an executive summary of a, you know, like you said, a 200page document. And I
8:55 think what we've put together and what we learn, uh, we are sharing with people so they have full insight into what we
9:02 actually need to course correct on as we go into these final 189 days left and into the future. So again,
9:10 are you going to release, you mentioned executive summary, are you going to release an official executive summary? make it make that public. We've been we've been releasing that,
9:17 John. That's what I've been saying to you.
9:19 Well, you said you said lesson there's the Democratic playbook, the the playbook that you said you can sign up for in DNC for sure. But I know that um you know NBC News said that before
9:27 Easter about a month ago, you told DNC officers on a call to expect an executive summary in short order.
9:33 Officers on that call told NBC they still haven't received one. You told a North Carolina DNC member who was drafting a resolution to force the
9:40 report's release that a summary was forthcoming and he backed off based on that promise. So you've been saying in coming weeks on the executive like when
9:48 can people when can people expect an AC accent sharing that with a number of folks and we'll continue to share it with folks including the DNC and other
9:56 people. The reality is is we're not hiding the ball on this. We have been sharing those things out. Happy to get
10:03 you over uh you know what we have been sharing out, John. The reality is is that there's no smoking gun here. And as
10:11 much as people would like to keep focusing in on those pieces, what they're ignoring is that we're sharing out the lessons. We have been
10:18 incorporating those and we have actually been putting those lessons into action,
10:23 which I'm most proud of. Look, we we are 189 days away from this election. You said on the top end of this that you what you care most about is helping us
10:31 to win elections. Okay, let's focus on the elections coming up, John. You know what?
10:36 Yeah. Well, I mean, I want I want to focus on winning them. And I feel like an autopsy on what went wrong and when we lost the popular vote in all those
10:43 states in 2024 and figuring out what went wrong based on a big report is pretty important for everyone to know. I've spent uh my my entire career, John,
10:51 as you know, since 1990 winning elections up and down the ballot both in Minnesota and across the country.
10:56 I appreciate that. And I'm happy I'm happy to talk to you about winning elections. If you want to actually talk about elections, I'm happy to talk to you about those. But again, you're
11:03 proving the point that I think many folks I I think are frustrated in this party, which is people want to turn backwards to relitigate the 2024
11:12 election to point fingers to place blame to to to want to learn lessons like you said. Well, listen, to win elections, if
11:19 they want to win elections, I'm happy to share what we learned in in the way of the lessons on why we lost uh the 24 election and the years preceding that.
11:28 Happy to share those. We're sharing those out with everyone. But again, this conversation doesn't help us actually win elections. All it does is continue
11:35 to uh turn people inward. What we need to do is focus on the work we need to do in 189 days. Learn the lessons. And I'm happy to go over what those lessons are.
11:45 I'm happy to go over them with uh anyone who wants to talk about them, John. But what I'm not going to do is release a report that turns everyone backwards
11:52 trying to either point fingers or place blame and actually ignore their own responsibility and helping us to fix the situation. The the reality is is, you know, um we all have a responsibility,
12:03 yourself, myself, everyone in actually learning those lessons, focusing on the upcoming election, putting them into action so we don't repeat those same
12:12 mistakes. That's what we've been focused on, John. So, Steve Shale, um, longtime Democratic strategist who's run Florida for the party, told the Washington
12:19 Examiner that there's a quote financial penalty specifically tied to burying the autopsy because donors want a clear
12:26 accounting before recommitting. The DNC is entering April with negative net cash on hand. So, even on your own, you know,
12:34 standard of does this help us win, is it possible that the autopsy decision is actually costing you the money you need to win?
12:42 That's just inaccurate, John. And I'm sure you follow the campaign finance reports like I do. We raised $105 million in uh 2025. A record amount of money for the first year.
12:52 You don't you're not you don't you're not have negative cash on hand right now. You don't you don't have debt. Uh that's negative cash on hand. But we also we do have debt, John,
13:00 and that's because I took out a loan last year to make sure we can make deep investments. Uh you know what we've been doing, John?
13:07 We raised a record amount of money, $105 million. It's the most raised for the first year chair of any DNC chair in the
13:14 history of this party. And you know what's great? What what you know what's great about it? We raised in 2017, which is a analogous year, a year right after
13:23 a presidential loss, Tom Perez uh raised $40 million less than what we raised uh this year.
13:29 I have he didn't have he didn't have the debt that you guys have. Yes, he did. He had $76 million in debt.
13:34 And so my point my point to you my point to you is this, John. Okay? I mean, we can trade in all of this, but let's actually trade in facts. $105 million
13:43 was raised. 85 million of it came from grassroots donors, which is a record amount of grassroots donations raised in the history of the Democratic Party.
13:51 That is shows the energy that's out there. The average contribution is $51,
13:55 by the way, John. And um you know, we raised more than uh any of the other committees last year, uh the DS, the DC,
14:02 and I will just tell you this, um all of the Republican committees raised more than the DNC. And so um uh that's just a
14:10 reality of coming out of a year when you lose the presidential election when you're the party that's out of power. Of course you're going to not raise as much
14:18 money as the Republicans. But to suggest that we're not raising money is inaccurate. We raised $32 million. We raised $32 million in the first quarter.
14:26 But what we're doing that's a little different, John. Mhm.
14:29 Is we're spending it. We're raising it and we're spending it because one of the lessons we learned spending but you're spending more than you have. I mean so you guys have 13.8 9
14:38 million cash on hand, right? I'm reading the report. 13.9 million cash on hand,
14:42 18.3 million in debt. So that's roughly4.4 million.
14:47 And I know it's a tough environment for the party out of power, but the DSC and the DEC and these Senate candidates have plenty of money. They're all doing
14:55 great. So it seems like this is a this is an issue unique to the DNC. That's not accurate, John. Listen,
15:01 what part is not accurate? The reality is we're spending money as we raise it to win elections and to
15:08 build infrastructure. We have invested significant amounts of money, record investments in Virginia and New Jersey.
15:15 Investments in Mississippi in their state legislative races to help them flip the state uh uh the Republican supermajority in their state
15:23 legislature. Investments in the Miami mayoral race to help us win a Democratic elected mayor in the first time in 30
15:30 years. investments in the PSC races in Georgia to help us win the first two um non-federal elected um uh races um
15:39 statewide races in 20 years in in their history. Um you know, investments throughout the country up and down the ballot and investments in
15:46 infrastructure, including the largest investments ever in a 50 state party strategy where we're making the biggest investments in uh building out the
15:55 infrastructure of our state and local party committees. You know, one of the lessons we learned, by the way, John, uh from the last uh election is that we waited too long to spend money. In fact,
16:05 the Republican party starting in 2020,
16:07 right after uh Biden won that race, the the Democratic party packed up the campaign infrastructure, Trump and the Republicans kept going. They kept spending money. They kept organizing.
16:17 They kept communicating with voters. We did not. And as a result, they had a three and a half yearl long uh head start. Um and going into the 2024
16:26 election, we had 10 million Democrats who actually chose the couch instead of voting in 2024. And part of the reason
16:34 why is because we weren't communicating with them early and often. What did the Democratic party decide last year to start doing? We have our local listener
16:42 program that's already engaging through year round organizing those voters who dropped off in 2024. We you have to
16:50 spend money to win elections. And one of the lessons we learned is if we wait.
16:54 Now look, I know you came up in a certain uh time in and day in politics. But the old conventional wisdom, John,
17:01 it doesn't fly anymore. The old conventional wisdom is that you waited to make investments until the final 3 months of the election because that's when people were paying attention. Well,
17:09 guess what? That's It's it's shown. We have to start early. We have to build that infrastructure. We have to flex that muscle early of having
17:18 conversations with voters so that we actually position ourselves to win. Now,
17:22 now are you criticizing me for spending money early because that seems to be what the thing is. And guess what?
17:28 No, I'm No, no. I think it's great that you're spending money early and I think it's very important to invest in state parties. I think a 50-stage strategy is
17:35 extremely important, but we're talking about two different things. We're talking about spending money and raising money. And you raised $1.4 million in
17:44 March. the RNC raised double that in March. And so if you're going to spend that much money, obviously you have to also raise the money too because
17:51 otherwise the difference between investment and just outrunning your costs and taking on a loan because of that is is doesn't seem like much of a difference to me.
18:00 It's not outrunning our cost, John,
18:02 because we're able to make these investments all throughout the country and race after race in our in our um uh
18:09 state party infrastructure, in our local party infrastructure. you know, if we weren't able to to keep up in terms of building out this infrastructure, then
18:18 there would be a problem. We won over 90% of the elections on the ballot and most of them, if not all of them, we had
18:25 a direct involvement in. And I just say this to you, John, because, you know, it was a bet we made. And I get it. You know, again, all the PE folks in DC,
18:33 what they like to uh they seem obsessed about and they they they spend a lot of time thinking about is
18:41 how much money do people have on hand versus actually what are you doing to build out the infrastructure to win and what is the role of a political party,
18:49 John? At the end of the day, our job is to build infrastructure that our candidates can tap into uh to do the things that
18:57 isn't the first isn't the the most important job of a DNC chair to go and raise money and obviously like the guess that's what the job of the unfortunately
19:04 no the the job of the DNC chair is singular. It's to win. And guess what I've been doing the last year and a half? Win. And guess what I did for 14 years in a very purple state? Win, John.
19:15 And I'm just telling you right now, I think you and others who continue to bet against the DNC, keep betting because guess what? Here's the reality, John.
19:23 We're winning. And we're winning because I'm I'm the fin.
19:26 But the investments you're making are not I mean, obviously there's a difference between offyear elections and midterm elections and what it's going to
19:34 take to build the kind of infrastructure we need to win in 2028, right? I mean, I I just think that that's that's a you've
19:41 talked a lot about investing in state parties. The headline number is $20,000 a month per state. My understanding is that also includes like the Democratic
19:49 Party of Guam and the party of the Northern Mariana Islands who get the basically the same check as Pennsylvania or Wisconsin or North Carolina. I get
19:57 that every state and territory has DNC members. Every one of them voted in the DNC election. You won, but it's also a real chunk of money that's flowing to
20:06 places without federal races. And so I just wonder if you have this much debt is like that the right allocation of
20:13 money to be giving it to state parties in Guam and Northern Mariana Islands when you know Axio reported that there's also contemplating layoffs at the DNC.
20:22 There's no Again, John, you're just throwing out a bunch of garbage. We've never report contemplated layoffs at the DNC.
20:31 I haven't laid anyone off since I've been DNC chair. And so I just want to be very clear uh with you again and your listeners because you're just repeating
20:40 garbage uh you know pot shots at the DNC. I I'm used to taking the pot shots by the way, you know, and I think the mistake that you and others make is you
20:48 know somehow um I I just don't care. I came to this job for one thing which is to win. And if it wasn't So you think but you think that state
20:57 you think the state party allocation to like the to Guam and everything is is is worthwhile allocation of of funds. I think it is a worthwhile allocation
21:04 because when we organize everywhere, we can win anywhere. And it's important for us not to just focus on federal power at the expense of state and local part uh
21:12 power. This is where I'm challenging the conventional wisdom of all these smart people in Washington DC here, which is that the only thing that matters is control of Congress in the presidency.
21:21 My job is to help us win everywhere, to build power up and down the ballot throughout the country, including in our territories. And so you and I can just
21:29dis disagree on whether or not those are investments that are worthwhile. I believe they are worthwhile. It's important for us to actually build power for our party and our party values
21:38 everywhere there's Democrats and we're going to continue to do that. And so um whether you think that's a worthwhile investment or not, that's fine. Um you
21:45 know, you can take your check back. Uh if you don't believe it's a a good investment, John, but let me just say this. Uh the the role of the Democratic
21:53 Party is to build infrastructure everywhere so that we can win. Let me give you a couple examples of what that infrastructure is. You know, our voter file and our organizing tools and our data,
22:04 every candidate, whether they're running for school board or president, relies on that. We spend over $10 million a year on that, John. That's a critical piece
22:11 of the infrastructure that people rely on. Without the DNC, uh they would have to do that on their own. all of these candidates, our voter protection and legal infrastructure that we build,
22:21 every committee and every candidate relies on us to be out there filing lawsuits and protecting the vote. We filed over a thousand lawsuits, which is
22:29 a record number of lawsuits over the last year alone, right? Including being lead plaintiffs in many of the big lawsuits challenging Trump's executive
22:37 orders. This is a piece of the infrastructure people rely on. Our on that you mentioned the voter file.
22:42 Um, there's been a talk that a meaningful chunk of the DNC's debt traces to the the committee buying the Harris campaign's voter file. Is that
22:50 accurate? Did you guys buy the the Harris campaign's voter file? No, that's not that didn't happen.
22:56 No, you're talking about buying a fundraising list, but but that's not a voter file. The the fundraising list?
23:01 Yeah. Did you Did you Of course you purchased that. was uh I was just wondering about the rationale for that because it feels like the DNC
23:09 and the Harris campaign were operating off largely the same data infrastructure during the campaign. So what did buying the list?
23:14 You're confusing two things, John. Uh data infrastructure and fundraising list. Those are separate things and I again but even on the fundraising list you guys didn't work off like you that was
23:23 additive. Their fundraising list for $6.5 million was additive to that that was a good investment.
23:28 We purchased that list and let me just say this John that um that happens all the time in campaigns and elections as you know.
23:33 Oh I know. It's just a big chunk of money. That's why I was just wondering why but as you know John that happens all the time. So it's not it's not unique to
23:40 this DNC. It's not unique to uh prior DNC chairs. It's not unique to campaigns or elections. Frankly, campaigns and
23:48 elections um uh campaigns uh at the end of an election sell their list to cover their debt. Uh and so there's nothing
23:55 nothing new about that, John. And of course, that's one of the biggest lists and the most valuable list out there.
24:01 It's a great investment for the DNC. I'm trying to actually help us raise money so we can compete so we can win. And that was uh not only a great investment,
24:10 it's already paid for itself. Uh you know, and we're glad to be able to do that. And you know, we buy lists all the
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25:12 Yeah, look, look, I here's the reason I'm just being so tough about all of this. I just think that um what I have seen happen before is especially um in
25:21 off-year elections, midterm elections when we have the wind at our back. And I feel great about the midterms. I feel really excited about the off-year elections too as we head towards 2028.
25:32 Look, I I I I saw this in 2022. We did well enough in the midterms and uh Democratic insiders, Biden
25:39 administration, everyone else were saying, you know what, this proves that we're going to win in 2024 and we're in great shape. And I just and God, I hope
25:47 so because I think we need to win 2028 more than anything. But it is it it concerns me that I see two things. one
25:56 this uh autopsy which you campaigned on releasing and and I know you're releasing lessons but are hiding still
26:04 plenty of the details in the autopsy and I just can't figure out what details that are in there that you don't want out there because you don't trust people with because they're going to I guess
26:12 argue about them because it feels like we really need a robust discussion about where the party's headed. Not just pundits like me but the state party
26:20 chairs and the DNC committee members who are asking you to release it. They're asking you to release it.
26:25 I know you want to keep focusing on that and that's fine.
26:27 Well, I'm saying and I do think that that affects the and the fundraising isn't going well either. So, I feel like and the fundraising that is just completely inaccurate, John, we
26:36 I mean, you had you had a great first you had a great first year in 2025.
26:40 And we've had a great first quarter. $32 million we raised in the first quarter.
26:44 We raised $4 million in March than Tom Perez did in 2018. We have that's excluding debt though. That's excluding 50% more cash on hand than Tom Perez did.
26:54 But you're excluding debt. You don't have 50% more cash on hand if you include your debt.
26:57 John, we do because at the end of the day, we can pay that debt off whenever the hell we want. I I could hold that debt until the end of the year. So, so
27:05 the reality is there's nothing that's holding me back in terms of the cash I have, the cash on hand I have to spend it on elections. I can carry that debt
27:13 all the way through the end of this year and beyond if I want. So, that's just inaccurate. I know you know campaigns,
27:18 but you're just spewing stuff out that's just wrong.
27:21 I'm just I'm saying that I saw that talking point about 15% more and it's based on excluding the raised we raised $32 million in the first quarter. Okay,
27:30 we have $15 million on hand. We're able to spend that money on continuing to build our infrastructure and to help us
27:37 win elections. Okay, and we're and we've continued to raise money. Nothing has slowed down. In fact, the fundraising has picked up significantly uh since
27:46 even the last November's elections in 2025. So, listen,
27:51 and I know the grassroots fundraising has been great. I I I know that. I I concede that for sure. I just there's plenty of reports about this. I've talked to plenty of people about this
27:59 that that a lot of the big donors still have not come off the sidelines. And part of the reason is that there's a trust issue based partly on the autopsy.
28:07 Yeah, I I'm just not seeing that, John.
28:09 And I... I appreciate that. and and and you know um uh I don't believe that to be the case. Maybe you're talking to donors that I'm not. I I highly doubt it. But
28:18 the donors I'm talking to who are holding back uh they're not holding back because they're frustrated with me and they're not holding back because they're
28:25 frustrated with the DNC. Uh just the opposite. And so I think people see that we are actually putting into action the
28:32 lessons we've learned. We're actually building the infrastructure we need.
28:36 We're competing up in the uh down the ballot. we're making the investments throughout the country to make sure that we're organizing everywhere. I mean,
28:43 part of the challenge, John, is we've talked about this on the show before,
28:47 um, that this party for years, and this is why I ran for it, has had a very myopic vision of just focusing in on one uh campaign cycle, one candidate, uh,
28:57 one campaign at the expense of a long-term strategy. And for us to break out of that, we actually have to have a long-term strategy. And that requires us
29:06 to build through the lens of building long-term infrastructure. And so, you know, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you throw all your eggs
29:13 into one basket, which is one campaign or one campaign cycle, then you've built nothing permanent. Or if you do, as I am, right, which is to start building
29:21 the permanent infrastructure we need to have a long-term strategy, then you get blamed because you you don't have enough
29:29 cash on hand to compete with the Republicans. Well, the reality is we've been competing with the Republicans and building the long-term infrastructure at
29:37 the same time. And so what I would ask you to do is just think about this differently. The old conventional wisdom of how we do campaigns. I came in here
29:46 and as I said, I'm challenging that conventional wisdom. I'm challenging the idea that we just invest in the final three months at the expense of a
29:54 long-term strategy. I'm challenging the uh the conventional wisdom that we just focus on federal power at the expense of state and local power. Right? I am
30:03 challenging the conventional wisdom that we just focus on seven battleground states at the expense of the rest of this country. So I get that that frustrates people, John, but guess what?
30:12 It will pay dividends. It already is both in the short term and it will pay dividends in the long term as this map shifts underneath of our feet in the
30:19 next four to six years. So I say all this, I get where your frustration comes from, right? But as I said, you know,
30:26 and I and I get it. You know, there are people including you and others who are in a different place on this chair's race. But since I've come here, I have
30:34 won. And you can't ignore that fact. We have won. I would go and ask you to talk to Eileen Higgins, the mayor of of um
30:42 Miami. I would go and ask you to talk to Alicia Johnson and Peter Hubard, the new PSC commissioners in uh Georgia. I would
30:51go and ask you to talk to Mikey Cheryl in New Jersey. I would go and ask you and talk to Abigail Spamberger in Virginia. I would go to ask you to talk to Taylor Ramett in Fort Worth, Texas,
31:01 and many, many other campaigns and candidates that we've helped over the course of the last year and a half.
31:07 Because what they will tell you is that the DMC was critically involved in those races. Was that a good investment?
31:14 I suppose by some people's standards,
31:16 no. Because we just don't we're not hoarding our money for the November election to win back control of Congress. Well, guess what? I just I
31:24 want to make sure you guys have enough money and I know there's, you know,
31:26 fundraising issues that you're, you know, you RNC raised nearly doubled than you guys. So, I want to make sure you have enough money and, you know, the DS
31:33 and the DRIP and everyone else and the Senate candidates are raising a whole bunch of money and matching Republicans.
31:39 So, I just want to make sure you guys have the money. They're not matching Republicans.
31:42 There's not matching Republicans. Every every Republican committee out their uh counterpart, the RNC,
31:47 not by double as as with you guys and the RNC, but I I I hear your point,
31:52 though. They did not raise us by double either. We raised $32 million to their 56 million or $54 million. I'm I'm going by the March numbers,
31:59 which is 11 to 21. But I hear you. I hear you. Um All right. Well, they I appreciate you. I appreciate you coming on. I appreciate you answering these questions and and I just I I do hope it
32:08 it was interesting to learn that you do still plan on releasing an executive summary of the full afteraction report
32:17 publicly to people who want it. That that is coming I soon. I I I guess we've been releasing those. We'll continue to release We've been releasing them. You've been
32:25 releasing an executive summary or you've been doing individuals?
32:28 We've been releasing those lessons. The lessons are the summary. That's We've been releasing those since the beginning of this year and briefing after
32:35 briefing. We published them in our playbook as I mentioned. We'll continue to release them. And so if anyone wants to see some of that work already, go to
32:42 dnc.org/playbook and you can see how we're already putting those lessons into action. We'll continue to do that, John. I mean, that was my commitment when I ran and that
32:51 was my commitment when we talked last is that we were going to help make sure people understood what lessons we needed to learn going into this election. We'll continue to do that. So,
33:00 thank you. Thank you. Uh, thank you, Ken Martin, for joining us always. Thank you, John.