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Foreign.
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Joining me today on IHIP News is David Hogg, former DNC Vice Chair and President of the leaders. We deserve. Of course, we are here today to talk about the utter breathtaking incompetence of Ken Martin, the DNC and the autopsy. David, let it rip.
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I mean, Jesus Christ, could we. Last election was defined more than anything by the fact of the incompetence of the previous administration, only to then result in us having this whole, you know, Ken's whole thing was running on releasing this autopsy report. It's not like somebody forced him into this position. It was literally the thing that he ran on while he was running to be chair of the dnc. Only for him to release a report that is incomplete, incoherent, incompetent and terrible over overall. That doesn't mention Gaza wants. It doesn't mention inflation. It doesn't mention President Biden's age at all. And it is ridiculous that we continue to have people in the Democratic Party that continuously fail upwards. We need to actually hold people accountable and make sure that we have proper leadership. The fact of the matter is, if we have a guy at the DNC that cannot even put together a report in a year and a half, how can we trust him to run the Presidential primary?
B
I completely agree. It is humiliating anybody who cannot. In this political climate where you have dipshit, incompetent, dementia ridden criminals, dirty cops committing crimes, covering up for pedophiles, and our approval rating is at the same with our party as it is with nationally with Republicans. Ken Martin is an abject failure. He is representative of how Democrats wet the bed, crowdsource what they're supposed to believe in and do not put fighters at the top of the ticket. I think Ken Martin needs to resign immediately. I think you should run for DNC chair. I am so sick of these lackluster milquetoast Democrats. I want to start with one of the most damning lines from the report. The autopsy states that the problem wasn't Democratic policy or party brand. What's your response to that?
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It's ridiculous. Our brand is everything. Our candidates are our brand. That is why people go out and vote in the first place. And what really pissed me off about this report more than anything was the fact that it's not because there weren't people in the room when they were creating this, telling them, hey, we need to talk about Gaza. Hey, we need to talk about inflation. Hey, we need to talk about the President's age. Right? I was the person in that room. I ran to be vice chair of the DNC to speak for young voters and tell the institution of the DNC what they needed to hear, even if they didn't want to hear it. I remember in our first meeting of the officers in the DNC building when we were talking about the results of the last election and the preliminary findings of the early autopsy, what we were going to say, what we were going to talk about, and nobody mentioned Gaza when they were talking about young voters. So I said, I know you guys don't want to talk about this, but if you're going to talk about why we lost young voters, you're going to have to talk about what happened in Gaza and the atrocities that were going on there that turned off many young voters. And to my surprise, everybody's response in the room was, no, David, no, no, no. We absolutely do and should need to talk about that. And then clearly they were too scared to put that into the report or anything of substance into the report. That actually was the driving result of the election in the first place. And that's what really pissed me off. Right. We are in a position right now where this was a opportunity for the DNC to show voters that we are turning a corner as a party, that we are actually holding ourselves accountable. And we're not just going to continue letting people like fucking Mike donnell and make $4 million off of losing elections, that we're going to keep hiring the same consultants, that we're going to keep hiring the same people over and over and over again that repeatedly, repeatedly fail over and over and over. And yet that is exactly what this report does. It proves that the establishment is effectively dead and that. That this is an encumbrant protection racket. This entire town is focused not on winning elections for Democrats in D.C. it is focused on keeping the same people in power, even if that means it keeps us in the minority. And it is beyond time that we go beyond this and we bring in fresh blood into our party that actually does hold ourselves accountable and doesn't just say, you know what? Our entire guiding philosophy as a party is to do whatever pisses off the fewest people within the establishment or whatever pisses off the fewest donors. Because guess what, Jen, We. We're getting the worst of both worlds where we are both pissing people off and not fundraising at the same time. The DNC is $3 million in debt as the RNC has $100 million. What the hell are we doing here? How much longer are we going to let this continue? There is so much more risk in letting Ken Martin stay there as chair of the DNC than there is in finding someone new.
B
It's, it's literally a layup right now to have the most popular Democratic Party imaginable. Take out the incompetence and the breathtaking glaring bullshit in this autopsy. Remove that, put that aside for now. Which is enough for Ken Martin to be fired for him to resign this very second. But just go with the fact that you have a culture at the DNC where they want to crowdsource what should we believe? We're nihilists that believe in nothing. Let's crowdsource what we should believe in. Also, we have the exact same pimps that MAGA has. The APAC pimp buys Donald Trump, the big tech pimps buy Donald Trump, but they also are buying some of our Democratic leaders.
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Yes.
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And you cannot have a party of prostitutes that have the same pimps as Donald Trump has. We have to be a full blown opposition party. And I am so focused on pissed off at Ken Martin. I'm so pissed off at focus groups. I'm so pissed off that I'm even registered as a Democrat because everything they're doing is brand damaging. And I come from a red state. I know what Republican super majorities do. I know how they are parasitic. They are compulsive liars. They weaponize faith to get these earnest voters to come in and vote for them. They've been doing for decades. And it's a race to the bottom. And I believe in the Democratic party, but this version of it is the most pathetic limp dick version of any political party I've ever seen in my life.
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It's absolutely unbelievable. And what's crazy is I can tell you, you know, I find myself in the interesting position of both working on the outside and shaking up the establishment. You know, supporting challengers like my Vang against Doris Matsui who took a max out check from APAC and so many others. And also being on the inside in D.C. and having to figure out how do we actually get better people elected in the first place? First place and take back the House. And I can tell you on the inside what they'll say is, you know, well, we have to take this corporate money because Republicans are taking that money. And I say to them, you know, maybe if you didn't vote for such shitty policies that's in favor of those corporations, you wouldn't have to spend so much goddamn money gaslighting voters into believing that you were for the working class because you would actually be voting in their favor and, and it just doesn't break through to them. It is insane to me. Just last March when we were challenging Valerie Fu, she with Nita Alum, an incredible pro Palestine candidate that was rejecting the influence of aipac, she was on a pathway to victory, defeating an APAC backed candidate, Valerie Fu xi. And then at the last second, Akeem Jeffries, in collaboration with Anthropic Super PAC came in and spent $2 million six days before the election to defeat a grassroots candidate in a safe blue seat simply to consolidate his own power and protect himself in defense of an incumbent who was heavily backed by AIPAC in her first election. What the hell are we doing here, right? We came in with within 1200 votes in that election and we could have had an amazing new member of Congress. And yet we find ourselves addicted to defending the status quo instead of figuring out how can we actually win. Because the American people are sick and tired of being gaslit by our party saying no, we're the party of the working class. We're the party of the working class. As the working class, and not even just the working class, the working and middle classes. Lives get worse where young people are going out, they're going to college, they're getting, they're trying to get a job and they're doing everything we have been told throughout our lives only to find ourselves in a worse position than our parents. What we're being told by this party, just believe in democracy. Just believe in democracy. We actually have to make democracy work for the people if people are going to actually believe in it. And increasingly young people are losing faith in it. In Harvard's most recent public opinion poll of young people, they found that only 13% of 18 to 29 year old Americans believe the country is on the right track. Our country is not on the right track and it is going in the wrong direction. And the only people with a real chance to be able to turn it around theoretically are in the Democratic Party. But right now they are so clearly failing to do that. It could not be more obvious that the establishment is dead and it is time to bring in a new cohort of candidates. And that's why I'm so glad I'm not at the DNC anymore, because we're doing the work every day at Leaders. We deserve to back the right candidates to show young people and people of all ages. While there are Democrats that take corporate money out there and there shouldn't be any of them, there is a cohort of young, a truly new generation that properly represents you. And not special interests like AIPAC or. Or other groups that are responsible for whether it's the genocide in Gaza or the evisceration of the American dream that we're seeing every single day.
B
Okay, a few follow ups. Number one, this notion within the dnc, we have to take corporate money to be competitive. This last race, Kamala outraged Trump. She outraised him, and he still won. So we had all of the corporate donations, and we still lost against a dementia ridden convicted felon that wears a full face of makeup. We lost to that guy who tried to overthrow a free and fair election. So that fundraising thing, especially when you look at how Zoran Mamdani in New York took on billionaires. He took on a Democrat named Andrew Cuomo with a all the backers of all the establishment. He beat his ass twice. So I'm calling bullshit on all of that. I think they enjoy being prostitutes. They enjoy being pimped out by these corporations. Why else would you continue to do it at this point? Number two, the Democratic Party tries to treat us the way MAGA treats their base, which is condescension in a patronizing way. These are what we think. This is how we're going to win. We have to move to the center, and you guys need to go along. You may remember about a year ago or eight months ago, I had Cory Booker on my podcast, and I called him out for Benjamin Netanyahu and APAC donations, and he said, I don't like this. They don't do this on the right. They don't call each other on the right. I was like, well, yeah, they actually do. And what happens is you're Massey, you're Liz Cheney, you get sent out to pastor Jeff Flake, etc. We have to call out our politicians. We have to say they're the cult. We're not. We hold our own accountable. Hakeem, what the actual are you doing taking money from Palantir? What is going on there? Chuck Schumer resign, and we have to have a DNC or some operation that fights. I think if. I think so many people, if they saw Democrats quit being pussies, our popularity would explode. But I also want to say one thing to the people that are doing the work that you're doing that I think this is really important, because I know that people will dunk on you. If you back a candidate and then she loses, then you have all this interest. The third way people that come out and want to dunk on you online. It's important that we keep the faith that. Look at what Bernie did, he never won president. Yeah, they are making a difference. And so you got within 1200 votes. We're going to keep organizing. We're going to keep fighting. We're going to tell the Democratic Party, quit being prostitutes, quit whoring yourself out to the same pimps that own Donald Trump. It's gross. It's disgusting. Nobody likes it. Grow a pair and fight. Okay, let's get a little bit more into the. I just had to respond to all of those things really quickly. Let's talk about the omissions. So they left out Gaza entirely. And I think that it would have been helpful. Like, actually, no, nobody gave a shit about Gaza. Or actually, yes, it caused a lot of people to sit at home. And then it's my understanding they didn't bring up inflation.
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Nope.
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Okay, go off.
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They didn't bring up inflation at all. They didn't talk about any of the real. Well, if you do a command f. Inflation comes up 18 times in the document and every time that it is mentioned, it is in regards to inflation adjusted fundraising, comparing different presidential cycles. It's not talking about the skyrocketing cost of living, which. Jesus Christ. Right. It doesn't talk about age at all. And it doesn't talk more than anything about what I truly believe. We didn't need a 200 page autopsy to tell people, which is that if you spend $3 billion or however many billions of dollars they had to try to gaslight people after. You tell them when they tell you the president is too old, and then you tell them, no, he's not. And then 107 days before the election, yes, he is. And then you tell them when they say that there's atrocities happening in Gaza, no, there aren't. Just shut up and vote harder. Then on top of that, they tell you that their cost of living is too high and you say, no, it's not. Look at the stock market and look at the gdp. If you tell people not to believe their eyeballs or what they're feeling in their wallets, you're going to lose them. No matter how much money you spend on ads. That more than anything is what decided the election and the fact that we can't grapple with that. And yet what we focus on is, you know what, what color of lipstick should we put on the pig? What, you know, how much can we spend on the lipstick instead of what are we doing about the actual pig in the first place is the overall problem here? Because the fact of the matter is nobody is ever held accountable in any real sense in our party when it comes to losing these elections in a major way and they go off and make millions of dollars off of it. I think part of the reason they're happy to take that corporate money is because there' people getting rich on this. Mike Donnellan made $4 million off of losing the election and the DNC is currently $3 million in debt. If Mike Donilon is watching this, which I'm sure he's not, because he's too old, he should pay this back. He should pay that money back with fucking interest to the dnc. It is ridiculous. Right? But the idea that we can continue just saying, you know what, we're just going to continue to take more of the same money from the same bad sources and prioritize the same bad policies as Republicans and try to just manipulate the American people into us more. It is not going to work. And the question is, what comes after that? Because we have the opportunity as a party to be the party of the little guy, the party that stands up for the working class for real. And not just in our ads, but for real in our policy and show people how we are fully rejecting the influence of corporations and special interests and standing up for the American people. And I guarantee you, even if we raised less money from that, which we wouldn't because we would make up for it and how much more people actually believe in us and what we actually stand for instead of just saying we're not Donald Trump, if we did that, our policies would be so popular that we wouldn't have to raise as much money overall because people would actually believe in us. And we could call out every time that Republicans are having corporate funded ads and so much more that they are bought and paid for. Especially in the wake of Trump giving $1.7 billion to fucking insurrectionists and traitors to our country.
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You're exactly, you're on the opportunity to
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be the anti corruption party, Jen. And it piss it makes me so fucking livid that we're in a place where people continue to prioritize their own self interests over the betterment of this country over democracy itself, because they're saying, well, you know, at least I can go and make my $4 million off of this and we can ride off into the sunset because I'll be fine in Geneva as America falls apart. That is not acceptable for a political party. We need to hold ourselves accountable. And that means having the conversations that many people don't want to have about the people that got rich off of last election and the people that continue to get promoted despite epically failing in a way that wouldn't even be allowed for a middle schooler. If you turned in this report to a middle school teacher, you would fail. We cannot continue on this path.
B
I completely agree with you. And you tap into something that I think is such great messaging right now for the Democrats. And it is, do you want to vote for the guy who is funded by these oligarch billionaires who don't pay taxes, who are parasites off the working class, who receive all of the social safety net that you accuse poor people of getting. They get loopholes, they get tax breaks, they get subsidies. All of the things you think these poor, poor people are getting, it's actually the billionaires that are getting them. It's corporate welfare. And we need to make it so brand damaging that if you take corporate money, it is that brand damaging. It is that toxic that corporations no longer want to touch it. The Supreme Court isn't going to help us. That DNC sure as fuck isn't going to help us. But we need to make that incredibly brand damaging. And I want to read to you a part of loser Ken Martin's post. And I think this guy is a stage five loser. And the hubris that he still stays in that position, doesn't tuck his tail between his legs and get away from the DNC right now shows how selfish the rot is at the epicenter of the dnc. Pop this up. Here's the last paragraph. For full transparency, I am releasing the report as we received it, in its entirety, unedited and unabridged. It does not meet my standards and it won't meet your standards. But I am doing this because people need to be able to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word. What the actual fuck? That makes zero sense. It is the dumbest thing I've ever read and I feel dumber for having read it.
A
And it's also to say you had a year and a half to do this, Ken, and who did you hire? You didn't create something like the NTSB like they have after a plane crash, you know, an impartial committee to really focus in on, on what cost us the election to go and interview people in swing states, to go and interview campaign operatives to go and do the actual work of what cost us the election and focus on that. Instead he hired a volunteer that was his friend who's from my best knowledge, last political experience was working on Bill Clinton's fucking campaign before I was alive and expected that person to succeed. And then when you get the dog shit report, it's not to say, hey, this is not where I want it to be. We're going to redo this process, make it much more transparent and bring in a lot more experts that are not just friends of mine. It's to say, here's a report. That's it. Let's go folks. You know, hopefully we win the midterms. It is insane. And let me tell you this much, Jen. The reason why things continue to be this way, I have seen it myself. I saw af, you know, we were one of the largest supporters of zoron. We spent $300,000 on him in his primary. And it was actually a lot of the money that we raised in the wake of the DNC that I literally took directly after that and cut a check to support Zoron through an independent expenditure. And I saw after how we did that, the same major donors that go to me and say, how do we win back young voters? How do we win back young voters? Then came to me after we supported him and said, I'm sorry I can't give you, you know, x hundreds of thousands of dollars because I don't support your candidates and the fact that they want to tax the rich more or that they don't agree with, you know, the US policy on Israel. And the good news is that leaders we deserve, 80% of our money comes with people that give less than $1,000 to us. That enables us to have the independence to do this work. But the reality is most people in this town don't have that kind of independence. The only reason I'm able to tell those donors to go and take a hike and prioritize the guy that got three times the voter turnout of 18 to 24 year olds that Kamala Harris got, which is Zoron. The only reason I'm able to do that is because we have so many small dollar donors that leaders we deserve and a lot of people in this town don't have that. And even if they do, they're too, they're too coward. There's too much cowardice to actually do the right thing. And even if it is individually punishing, right? I could have stayed at the DNC and just shut my mouth, sat on my hands and helped, you know, them write their strongly worded letters condemning fascism. But that is not what's going to actually help move our party forward. If we are going to change our brand, if we're going to change who we are, that starts with changing not just our messaging, but changing who is actually in power, who are our candidates. And I could not be more proud that we've supported candidates like Zoran and so many others around the country to change the face of this party, because we have the opportunity of a century as a party right now, but we are failing to meet it. Donald Trump is so epically failing on everything that he ran on. From failing to release the Epstein files in their fully unredacted form because he's all over those files. Or the fact that he ran on ending forever wars and then started another one. Or the fact that he ran on. On addressing the cost of living, then made it skyrocket because of a stupid fucking decision he made himself to start another forever war. We have an opportunity to show the American people we are not going to continue, that we will stand up against it. But they don't believe us because we spent the past five years telling them the President's not too old, even though you all are saying he is, that your life is going great and that the cost of living is not too high because the stock market is doing well. We have the opportunity to finally turn this ship around. And what did we just do?
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We.
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We turn straight into the goddamn iceberg. It is time for us to lay a new foundation for the Democratic Party and let a new crop of leaders rise. And the good news is, Jen, many of the people that are in power right now in Washington, as you're seeing, are so geriatric, they will not be there forever, including Donald Trump. There will be a day that comes after him. There will be a day that comes after so many of the members of Congress that are there right now. The question is, what are we going to do about it? Because people like Ken Martin, they're not going to answer it in case that isn't clear enough. So it's up to people like you and I and people around the country to stand up and be the leaders that we've always needed and become the party that we always knew that we could be, but have failed our entire lives to actually be in the first place. The party that stands up for the working class, not special interests, and fully rejects them. So that when voters go into the voting booth and they vote for a Democrat, they know that we are the people that actually stand up and fight for them. And that Republicans are the people that are out there fighting for the guys building the data centers in their backyard. That Republicans are the people that are going out there and lying straight to their faces and saying, we're going to end forever wars while starting them. They are the people that are going out there and giving insurrectionists not prison sentences, but $1.7 billion for people. It is the opportunity of a lifetime and we are completely failing to meet it. But we can turn this around because it doesn't have to be this way. And I really hope that people understand that it doesn't have to be this way. I truly believe, and I know that you do too, Jen, a better world, a better party is possible. But that starts with our candidates. And it starts with laying a new foundation of them across the country and showing our generation Gen Z and Gen Alpha that the Democratic Party is one that you should vote for. Not because we're just not Republicans, but because we're Democrats and we actually get shit done. We build great communities and we build a better government that's not beholden to special interests and more than anything is beholden in the way it should be to voters.
B
And I would point out you were talking about what the Republican Party believes in and what they do. And I think a huge Democratic messaging point that we need to take and I'm dead serious about this, we need to play offense on. Why are Republicans obsessed with gay sex? Why are Republicans obsessed with genitalia and Democrat? Yeah, the Democratic establishment is so, you know, eager to throw groups under the bus. And it's like the people who are obsessed with trans porn, with trans people, with gay sex are Republicans. Look no further than Lindsey Graham or Moses Mike Johnson. That's exactly what you big titty, Brian. Exactly. He said he wants to be a trans bimbo named Crystal. All of this happens in the Maga Party. Okay, David, this is really important. I get so many questions in my community because we all share this righteous anger. We all share this desire to right wrongs. We all share this desire to save what we can of our country, to not let this man be our representative. So let's talk to my audience about a plan of actions. We can ignore the dnc. We can ignore Ken Martin. We don't have to send them assent. So we what Democratic organizations filter in that the the DNC manages? And what are better ways for my listeners, for my community to give money to people who are not beholden to corporations in the Democratic Party, to the real Democrats, the people that are truly for the people. Help my community with a plan of action that they personally can engage in. How to follow you and where they should give, even if it's five, ten dollars.
A
Yeah, well, what I'll tell you is at leaders we deserve. We have done the work to, you know, it's. We started out with just a couple hundred people on an email list that unfortunately included a few ex girlfriends of mine that I found out after we sent our first emails. But that is really how we started. And we started because we, you know, Maxwell's, Maxwell Frost's campaign manager and I co founded this organization to find more people like Maxwell Frost and get them elected and across the finish line. Because we need that new generation and not just younger, you know, versions of the people that are currently in power right now that are going to only elongate our problem with a younger face, but the same donors. Right. But a truly new generation. And our organization exists to embrace a culture of competition in the Democratic Party. I think part of the reason why we are in this position is because we have assholes like Stephen lynch who've been in Congress since 2001, that when they're, when they're saying that they're doing things to fight back against Doge Cuts, for example, and they're asked to do more to fight back against Donald Trump by one of their Democratic constituents, says, I'm the member of Congress. You're not the member of Congress. I am. If you want to be in Congress, then you run for Congress. We're happy to answer that call for entitled assholes like that by running people like Patrick Roth, a voting rights lawyer, against him who has a real shot of winning. But if we don't embrace a culture of competition in our party, especially in our safe blue seats, the reason we are here, and they feel like all they need to do is write strongly worded letters is because they know that for most members of Congress in a safer seat, which increasingly they're going to be, after all the redistricting that's happening, that it's essentially a lifetime appointment because it is so hard to defeat an incumbent. But if we actually do challenge incumbents, even if we don't win every single race, when we do win, it means that it can be somebody like AOC who wins because it is so hard to overcome all the advantages they have. And when they do, when they're so much better than their opponent, imagine if we didn't have AOC right now. Right? And even in the case of somebody like Netta, who came within 1200 votes of her opponent, her opponent then embraced the Green New Deal, her opponent then signed on to block the bombs, her opponent then rejected aipac because these politicians are cowards. They are defined by whatever keeps them in Power. And that is what defines their decision making more than anything. And that is what we need to do. Embrace a culture of competition in our party and then do the work at the state legislative level. Right now, so much, so little is going to happen in Congress, especially as they get into more gridlock after redistricting. We need to be laser focused on state legislatures where we can actually pass legislation. And Republicans have built up power for the past 50 years. That's how they've really done it. And then Trump came in at the very end to do checkmate on the whole system. But the thing that laid the groundwork for that was the takeover of state legislatures. That's why the vast majority of the candidates that we support at leaders we deserve, what we do in Congress is really make a point and change the culture of our party. But the long term focus, the real meat and potatoes of what we do is state legislatures. And just recently we had the most wins we ever have had in one election night, electing tons of candidates across Georgia, Pennsylvania and other states around the country. And we got a runoffs coming up right now in Texas, there's a candidate named Julio Salinas that we're supporting that's in a runoff against a Democrat who is actively still showing up to Tea Party meetings. And if we lose that seat, even though it's a safer blue seat, he that his opponent Sebi could caucus with the Republicans and cost Democrats a future majority in the Texas state legislature. We are doing the work at the state legislative level to build an incredible bench of great candidates, not just in blue states, not just in purple states, but in red states as well, where we know we are going to have to win for the long term, especially for 20, 30 and after census reapportionment. That's why we invest in Georgia, Texas, Florida and so many other states. But in order to do that, we need the independents to support the candidates that the party does not fucking like. But we absolutely do need. And the way we do that is with small dollar contributions. What the single best way people can help us out, besides obviously voting for our candidates, is donating. Not just one time, of course, I'm very grateful for that, but donating monthly to support our work. Because Donald Trump is a master of distraction. Jen, those small dollar donations, they ebb and flow a lot. And when, you know, people are paying attention to state legislatures, it's great. We can bring in a lot of money, but we need to do the work consistently on a monthly basis. And as we go into summer, our donations are about to go down starting around Memorial Day weekend. They crater because people obviously don't want to pay attention to the shit show that is the Democratic Party. I hope that you take break too, Jen, and don't have to do that. But we are going to continue doing that work across the country this cycle. I have a goal of endorsing twice as many candidates as we did last cyc, potentially even three times as many. But in order for us to do that, we need more financial support. So if people could donate five or ten dollars a month at leaders we deserve.com that goes a huge way in giving us the stability to do the work of advising candidates on a daily basis and also fun helping to fund their campaigns.
B
I will the minute we get off of this stream, I'm going to sign up to donate monthly to Leaders We Deserve and I'm going to make Pumps my co host sign up and I know she enthusiastically will. And for my listeners who think David Hogg looks familiar and you've seen him on, you know, Cable or on YouTube, his passion comes from a personal experience that he went to school one day in the United States of America and his friends were killed by a shooter and the Democratic Party and the Republican Party do nothing. And so he fights for his generation and for his friends that can no longer fight. And this is a uniquely American problem. And I'm just so grateful when I see the numbers of the the MAGA support in people your age is at 18% and I think we need to get that down to single digits. I'm going to sign up immediately to donate monthly. David Hawk, thank you for everything you do. I want to throw all chips in and supporting you, the dnc, their incompetence and fuck the patronizing, condescending way that they treat their educated, critically thinking voters and them for not fighting fascism.
A
Yeah, let's go and change it. Thanks, Jen.
B
All right, bye bye.
Hosts: Jennifer Welch & Angie “Pumps” Sullivan
Guest: David Hogg (former DNC Vice Chair, President of Leaders We Deserve)
Date: May 22, 2026
This explosive episode dives into the Democratic National Committee’s widely panned “2024 election autopsy” report. Hosts Jennifer and Angie, joined by former DNC Vice Chair David Hogg, deliver an unfiltered, often biting, critique of the DNC’s leadership failures, the report’s glaring omissions (notably on Gaza, inflation, and Biden’s age), and the corrosive influence of corporate money on Democratic politics. David provides an insider’s perspective, sharing both frustration and hope for the future of progressive movements and outlining a call to action for listeners seeking meaningful change.
"It doesn't mention Gaza once. It doesn't mention inflation. It doesn't mention President Biden's age at all." (David Hogg, 00:25)
"Ken Martin is an abject failure. He is representative of how Democrats wet the bed, crowdsource what they're supposed to believe in and do not put fighters at the top of the ticket." (Jennifer Welch, 01:18)
"I said...if you're going to talk about why we lost young voters, you're going to have to talk about what happened in Gaza...And then clearly they were too scared to put that into the report.” (David Hogg, 02:16)
"If you turned in this report to a middle school teacher, you would fail." (David Hogg, 16:52)
"It's an encumbrant protection racket. This entire town is focused not on winning elections for Democrats...it is focused on keeping the same people in power." (David Hogg, 03:45)
"The DNC is $3 million in debt as the RNC has $100 million." (David Hogg, 04:40)
"We have to be a full-blown opposition party...I am so pissed off that I'm even registered as a Democrat because everything they're doing is brand damaging." (Jennifer Welch, 05:46)
"Maybe if you didn't vote for such shitty policies that's in favor of those corporations, you wouldn't have to spend so much goddamn money gaslighting voters..." (David Hogg, 06:39)
"We have to call out our politicians. We have to say they're the cult. We're not. We hold our own accountable." (Jennifer Welch, 10:30)
"If you tell people not to believe their eyeballs or what they're feeling in their wallets, you're going to lose them." (David Hogg, 13:59)
"What color of lipstick should we put on the pig?...instead of what are we doing about the actual pig in the first place?" (David Hogg, 14:30)
"I think they enjoy being prostitutes. They enjoy being pimped out by these corporations. Why else would you continue to do it at this point?" (Jennifer Welch, 09:50)
"Mike Donilon made $4 million off of losing the election and the DNC is currently $3 million in debt. If Mike Donilon is watching this...he should pay that money back with fucking interest to the DNC." (David Hogg, 14:54)
"We need the independence to support the candidates that the party does not fucking like. But we absolutely do need." (David Hogg, 27:37)
"We need to be laser focused on state legislatures where we can actually pass legislation." (David Hogg, 28:45)
"If people could donate five or ten dollars a month at leaderswedeserve.com that goes a huge way in giving us the stability to do the work of advising candidates on a daily basis and also...helping to fund their campaigns." (David Hogg, 29:20)
"The DNC...fuck the patronizing, condescending way that they treat their educated, critically thinking voters and them for not fighting fascism." (Jennifer Welch, 31:24)
"It is beyond time that we go beyond this and we bring in fresh blood into our party that actually does hold ourselves accountable..."
— David Hogg, [04:30]
"I want to start with one of the most damning lines from the report. The autopsy states that the problem wasn't Democratic policy or party brand. What's your response to that?"
— Jennifer Welch, [01:45]
"It's gross. It's disgusting. Nobody likes it. Grow a pair and fight."
— Jennifer Welch, [11:42]
"What the actual fuck? That makes zero sense. It is the dumbest thing I've ever read and I feel dumber for having read it."
— Jennifer Welch, [18:17]
"We turn straight into the goddamn iceberg. It is time for us to lay a new foundation for the Democratic Party and let a new crop of leaders rise."
— David Hogg, [21:54]
Tone:
Unapologetically frank and often indignant, the episode is saturated with dark humor, insider anecdotes, and a sense of urgent righteous anger, balanced by practical advice and glimmers of hope for Democratic renewal.
This episode is a must-catch if you're frustrated with the current state of Democratic politics or curious about how insiders see the failings of the establishment. It serves as both a cathartic vent and an actionable guide, spotlighting the need for accountability, grassroots organizing, and a generational transformation in progressive politics.