Why Is the DNC Hiding Its Own 2024 Autopsy?

Summary

Pod Save America — "Why Is the DNC Hiding Its Own 2024 Autopsy?"

Date: April 29, 2026
Host: Jon Favreau
Guest: Ken Martin, DNC Chair

---

Episode Overview

This episode centers on a frank, at times contentious interview between Jon Favreau and DNC Chair Ken Martin, focusing on two hot-button topics within Democratic politics: the DNC’s refusal to release its full 2024 "autopsy" report (after action review) and party finances ahead of the 2028 election. The conversation highlights broader questions of transparency, accountability, and strategy as the party attempts to recover from a 2024 presidential loss and prepares for key elections.

---

Key Discussion Points

1. The 2024 Election "Autopsy" (After Action Review)

• Background: The DNC commissioned a comprehensive review of the 2024 election loss, promising transparency and a full release (per Ken Martin’s campaign for chair). However, in December 2025, Martin and DNC leadership decided not to make the 200+ page report public, instead opting to share selected "lessons."
• Favreau's Argument: The Democratic Party’s future success depends on open debate and learning from past mistakes. Hiding the report undermines trust, especially given prior promises of transparency and requests from DNC members and state chairs.
  • Quote: “The idea that we shouldn't have access to a full report about what went wrong last time ... is absolutely bonkers to me.” — Jon Favreau (04:48)
• Martin’s Stance: No “smoking gun” exists in the report; the risk of relitigating 2024 and fostering blame outweighs the benefit of full disclosure. The focus must remain on actionable lessons and winning upcoming elections.
  • Quote: “We're 189 days from this election … What we don't need to be focused on is actually relitigating 2024.” — Ken Martin (09:07)
• Pushback: Favreau and state party leaders argue that releasing only "summaries" or "lessons" leaves DNC members and donors in the dark about the full findings and how those lessons were formulated.
  • Quote: “Do they know what they're agreeing to ... if they haven't been able to read the report?” — Jon Favreau (12:02)
• Martin’s Frustration: Martin maintains that the obsession over the full report is misplaced and insists that full transparency is unnecessary since the lessons have already been internalized and operationalized.
  • Quote: “There's not … some sort of magic silver bullet in there that's going to solve all our ills.” — Ken Martin (12:45)

Timestamps for Notable Segments

• [06:33] Favreau confronts Martin on reversing the promise to release the autopsy.
• [08:20] On the need to share findings with those who invested time and money.
• [10:48] Citing DNC members and state chairs who want the report.
• [12:02] Debate on operationalizing lessons without full transparency.
• [14:58] Pressing on the release (or lack thereof) of an official executive summary.

---

2. DNC Finances & Spending Strategy

• Context: The DNC reported significant debt (about $18.3M) as of March 2026, with only $13.9M in cash on hand (a negative net position), while the RNC reported much higher cash and no debt.
• Martin’s Defense: The DNC under his leadership raised a record $105M in 2025. He chose to keep spending aggressively (in contrast to “old conventional wisdom”) to build a permanent, nationwide campaign infrastructure, arguing this is essential for long-term party success.
  • Quote: “We’re spending [money] to win elections and to build infrastructure ... One of the lessons we learned is that we waited too long to spend money.” — Ken Martin (24:05)
• Favreau’s Critique: Raises concern that higher spending and lower cash reserves could jeopardize long-term viability, especially with fundraising lagging compared to the RNC.
  • Quote: “You raised $11.4 million in March. The RNC raised double that ... If you're going to spend that much money, you have to also raise the money too.” — Jon Favreau (25:51)
• Spending Details: Investments highlighted include flipped/competitive races in Virginia, Mississippi, Miami, Georgia, and a $20,000/month allocation to every state party (including territories such as Guam).
• Controversies:
  • Large payment to acquire the Harris campaign’s fundraising list ($6.5M), justified as a standard practice.
  • Reports of contemplated layoffs at DNC (Martin flatly denies).
  • Spending in low-priority states/territories (Martin defends as part of a 50-state strategy).
  • Effects on donor trust and fundraising — Favreau suggests transparency about finances and the autopsy could help.

Timestamps for Finance Discussion

• [21:04] Favreau connects autopsy secrecy to donor skepticism.
• [23:22] Discussion of spending vs. raising money and comparison to other Democratic committees.
• [27:20] Arguing about the core function of the DNC chair: fundraising vs. building infrastructure.
• [28:45] 50-state spending strategy and allocations to territories.
• [33:28] Discussion clarifying Harris campaign list purchase.
• [36:20] Favreau presses again on the connection between transparency and donor reticence.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Transparency and Trust:
  • “To win in 2028, we need not just the people in Washington, not just the people who think they know better than the rest of us rubes. All of us should have a say.” — Jon Favreau (04:48)
  • “People are obsessed about [the autopsy] ... what they're ignoring is that we're sharing out the lessons.” — Ken Martin (15:44)
• On Party Finances & Strategy:
  • “The job of the DNC chair is singular: it’s to win.” — Ken Martin (27:30)
  • “I’m challenging the conventional wisdom … that we just focus on seven battleground states at the expense of the rest of this country.” — Ken Martin (39:00)
  • “We can pay that debt off whenever the hell we want. I could hold that debt until the end of the year.” — Ken Martin (36:53)
• Memorable Rebuttal:
  • [12:57] “No one thinks there's a magic silver bullet. It's a 200-page report. … People are probably wondering ...” — Jon Favreau
• On Donor Trust:
  • “Donors want a clearer accounting before recommitting … is it possible that the Autopsy decision is costing you the money you need to win?” — Jon Favreau (21:04)
  • “I'm not seeing that, John. ... The donors I'm talking to ... are not holding back because they're frustrated with me or the DNC.” — Ken Martin (38:02)

---

Tone & Takeaways

• Tone: The interview is assertive on both sides — Favreau is pressing, at times incredulous; Martin is defensive, confident, and combative about his approach and critics, pushing back aggressively against stats or reports he deems “inaccurate” or “garbage.”
• For Listeners: The episode offers a revealing window into DNC strategy, how internal party debates play out, and the persistent tension between long-term infrastructure building and immediate political/PR needs. It highlights why transparency and trust matter to grassroots activists and big donors alike.
• Actionable Links: Martin repeatedly points listeners to dnc.org/playbook to see the “lessons” from the autopsy and examples of infrastructure investments.

---

Timeline of Important Segments

• 04:45–11:00: The case for and against autopsy transparency; what was promised, and what’s being delivered
• 12:00–15:50: Is sharing only “lessons” enough? Summaries, operationalizing findings, funding for report creation
• 21:00–24:30: DNC finances: debt, cash on hand, spending vs. fundraising, historical comparisons
• 27:20–31:00: Functions of the DNC chair, strategy, and approach to spreading resources across all states/territories
• 33:28–34:48: Controversy around Harris campaign data purchase
• 36:44–42:19: Recap on fundraising, donor trust, and Martin’s vision for a long-term, nationwide strategy

---

Conclusion

The episode is a must-listen for Democratic activists, donors, and anyone interested in party governance and transparency. It raises difficult but essential questions about how the party learns, spends, and prepares for a high-stakes 2028 cycle — and how it can balance internal debate with election-winning discipline.

Transcript

[A]

Pod Save America is brought to you by Simplisafe. Between the news cycle and the chaos of everyday life, your brain already is too many tabs open. Having a system that lets you check the ARM status from your phone means you're not lying awake at 2am Wondering if that thump downstairs was the cat or something worse. Simplisafe is more than just a camera. It's a comprehensive ecosystem of sensors, cameras for inside and out, and 24. 7 professional monitoring. In the event of a break in, flood or fire, Simplisafe's agents are ready to take action. With Simplisafe, you can easily customize a system that's right for your [e-mail] and ships to your door in a few days. With app guided setup and no drilling required, you can install and arm your system in under an hour. No need to wait around for a technician appointment. There are no long term contracts or hidden cancellation fees. Simplisafe earns your business by keeping you safe, not by trapping you in a contract.

[B]

Get 24.

[A]

7 monitoring for a fraction of what the traditional brands charge. Look, we've all lived in places without security systems and we know that that that noise downstairs, a little scarier, that thump outside is a little more freaky, the floodlight going on, you don't like that. It really gives you some peace of mind to know that you have a SimpliSafe system, that you can check it from your phone, that you have cameras inside and out. There's sensors, there's 24. 7 monitoring. That's why we highly recommend it. We've partnered with SimpliSafe to offer an exclusive discount to our listeners. Right now you can get 50% off your new system by visiting simplisafe.com crooked that's half off. @simplisafe.com crooked there's no safe like SimpliSafe.

[C]

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

[B]

So yesterday I interviewed Ken Martin, the DNC chair. And for scheduling reasons, we had originally planned on just keeping it on our YouTube channel. But because the interview turned out to be much spicier than we had anticipated, we're dropping it here for all of you just to set up what happened. Ken reached out last week asking if he could have a chance to respond to criticism coming from some of us here at crooked about the DNC's finances after it was reported that the Democratic National Committee ended March with $13.9 million in cash and $18.3 million in debt, for a total of negative $4.4 million. The RNC, by contrast, has $116.7 million in cash with no debt. Ken had also mentioned our past criticism of his decision not to Release the full 200 page report that the DNC had conducted on what went wrong in the 2024 election, which he had promised to do when he ran for DNC chair and again when he sat down with me last August. We of course said, sure, we'd love to have him on and hash it out. So we did. And I'll just say the reason I spent so much time asking him about the report, also known as the 2024 autopsy, is not because I want to relitigate every miserable detail of that election or figure out who to blame. It's because of this. Ken and the DNC supposedly commissioned a massive project where they interviewed party leaders, strategists, organizers, activists in all 50 states about the 2024 election, what went wrong, what went right, what they learned from voters, what they learned from the reams of data they had access to, what they learned about how to make sure we win next time. They supposedly did this for almost a year. They supposedly wrote up a 200 and some odd page report. And then Ken Martin announced in December that actually DNC leadership wasn't gonna let anyone see what they found and they were instead gonna tell the rest of us the lessons that they DNC leadership took from the report because, well, that's what I wanted to find out. Now, Democrats have massively overperformed in nearly every special and off year election we've had since 2024. We have covered that extensively on the show. Thanks to Donald Trump's popularity, the party is in an excellent position to not just take back the House in the November midterms, but maybe even the Senate. But as we learned in 2018 and 2022, midterm elections and special elections and off year elections are just very different from presidential elections. Different voters, different turnout, different stakes. 2028 will be much harder. Just like 2024 was harder than 2022, just like 2020 was harder than 2018, and so on and so forth. The Democratic Party's popularity is still at record lows, and the idea that we shouldn't have access to a full report about what went wrong last time, based on interviews with some of the very same people who will be responsible for winning next time, is absolutely bonkers. To me, that autopsy isn't the most important thing, but it could have at least formed the basis for the open, honest, and yes, messy debate we absolutely need to have about how to win in 2028. Not just a few of us, not just Ken Martin and the DNC leadership, not just the party insiders who think they know better than the rest of us rubes. All of us who not only want to win, but will have to live with the consequences of what happens if. If we lose, we should all get a say, too. So that's what I tried to ask Ken about, and you guys can judge his answers for yourselves. Here's Ken Martin.

[C]

Ken Martin, thanks for doing this.

[D]

Yeah, thanks for having me back on.

[E]

John, it was great to see you

[D]

the other night at the Grindr Party of all parties. It was amazing.

[C]

I know. I wish they 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 frustration about criticism of the DNC coming from our direction. So I appreciate you coming on to talk about it directly. I'll just say up front, 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 jobs in politics that you took at an especially tough time for the party.

[B]

But I do want to press you

[C]

on some specific things because I think the stakes are too high not to. Does that sound fair?

[E]

Sounds great, John. Thank you. I appreciate it.

[B]

So I want to start with the

[C]

2024 autopsy, which you call an after action review. When you won the chairmanship In February of 25, you criticized the DNC's refusal to release their 2016 autopsy is exactly what not to do. You said, quote, was there any utility in doing that? And then promised your 2024 autopsy would be different. Your exact quote was, of course it will be released.

[B]

Why did you change your mind on that?

[D]

Well, look, I mean, what I said

[E]

all along, even when I ran for

[D]

this position, is that we were going

[E]

to focus on the things that will help us win the upcoming election, Right?

[D]

Making sure that we learn the right lessons that could help inform our victories. And that's what we've done.

[E]

We said this when we sent out

[D]

the press release back in November, saying we weren't going to release the report.

[E]

We were going to actually keep our focus on those lessons.

[D]

And we release those lessons. We continue to do that. And it's important for me, instead of navel gazing and looking backwards and 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 in 24. The only thing we can do is actually change what happens in the Future, including the 26 election cycle, 28 and beyond.

[E]

That means we do need to learn the lessons.

[D]

We need to make sure they help inform our decisions that we're making. And we've been releasing those. We released them just a couple months ago in our playbook, which if you want to look at that, go to dnc.org playbook and you can get an example of some of the lessons. We've been releasing them with our donors and with activists and 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,

[E]

to say that we didn't release that.

[D]

Where we're keeping our focus is on

[E]

the lessons that can actually help us win.

[C]

But on this show in August, you told me this about releasing the review. 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.

[E]

Correct.

[C]

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 the full report? What's in the report that you wouldn't want?

[E]

Yeah, there's no smoking gun in the report. And I know that's what everyone's so eager to learn, the smoking gun. Guess what, John?

[C]

But if there's no smoking gun, why wouldn't you just release it then?

[D]

Because we want to keep the focus on the lessons. Because what ends up happening here is

[E]

that people of course want to weaponize

[D]

the report in a way to look

[E]

backwards, to point fingers, place blame in

[D]

a way that actually doesn't keep us focused on the upcoming election, but instead the navel gazing of focusing backwards actually takes us backwards. We're 189 days from this election, John. What we don't need to be focused on is actually relitigating 2024. What we need to do is learn the lessons of 24 in the years preceding 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 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 talking about this with party leaders and activists and others and organizations and campaigns. It's no surprise to. And I get it. I get 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, John? In the third closest presidential election in the last hundred years, everything mattered. There's nothing that didn't impact that election.

[C]

But why did. Why did you spend the money going to 50 states, doing all these interviews, doing all this stuff and doing this report in the first place if you weren't going to release the full results of it? Like, why? I don't get why just you and some of the senior DNC people get to see it, but not most of the DNC members who are state party chairs. I mean, more than a dozen DNC members told NBC just the other week they want it released, including Congresswoman Delia Ramirez and North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton. And Anderson said, quote, genuinely, what did you all find that we did not. How did you answer that question?

[E]

What we found is the things we've been telling them both, Anderson, Delia, other folks who have concerns about it.

[D]

We've shared all of the lessons with them.

[E]

Right. And so again, I think, John, the reality is you're proving my point here. Right. People are obsessed about this in a way that continues to turn them away from wanting to focus on the lessons and instead thinking that there's some sort of smoking gun in here that's going

[D]

to give them the one single reason that Kamala 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 one single thing that costs Kamala the election. There is no one single thing that we can do to help us win the upcoming election. There's a number of lessons, for sure that will help us win in 26 and beyond. But again, I understand what you're saying, John. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this because, you know, we have already started to put those lessons into action. I'm proud of the results of what we've seen over the last year and a half since. Since I've been elected. We have significant wind at our back and we're gonna continue to move forward and we're gonna continue to put those lessons we've learned into action.

[E]

And I hope others will start to do the same.

[C]

Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out, because it certainly doesn't seem like anyone's looking for one single silver bullet because it's a 200 page report so I feel like on a 200 page report there's a lot of lessons for everyone to take. And if you're gonna operationalize it, then I think the question is like, are you operationalizing it on behalf of people who, who didn't actually get to see the report? So, like, do they know what they're agreeing to when they operate? Operationalize lessons from the report if they haven't been able to read the report?

[E]

John, you're proven the point.

[C]

What's the point?

[E]

But what point is the, the, the obsession on the report without actually focusing in on the lessons? People believe there's something, there's some sort

[D]

of magic silver bullet in there that's going to solve all of our ills at the Democratic Party. There's not. And I understand.

[C]

I don't think, I don't think there's going to be a magic silver bullet, though. Who, who thinks that? No one thinks it's good.

[D]

That's a.

[C]

Such a. No one thinks there's a magic silver bullet. It's a 200 page report. You interview people in 50 states. You spent a lot of donor money on it. I think people are probably wondering, like, on it.

[E]

We didn't spend a lot of donor money on that. And that's just inaccurate.

[C]

You spent a couple hundred thousand dollars on it, right?

[E]

No, we did not.

[C]

It was a free report.

[E]

We did not spend a couple hundred thousand dollars on that. The person and people who were involved in it were not paid to do this work. And so I would just say that's, 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

[D]

any money on that?

[C]

I've seen, I've seen reporting that, that you did spend money on it. Yeah, for sure.

[E]

Okay, well, that's, that's inaccurate.

[D]

Okay. The person we asked to do this

[E]

is an unpaid advisor to the dnc.

[D]

And so I appreciate, listen, I appreciate where it's coming from, John, but let's

[E]

just trade in facts on this, right? The reality is we did talk to hundreds of people. It was an exhaustive exercise to really

[D]

get 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,

[C]

which is 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, you thought, I'm going to do one, but only Release certain and not the full report.

[D]

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 focus on those lessons. We have to do this exercise by the way of conducting this analysis so that we actually learn what happened not just in 24 but in the years preceding that, John. And so that's where our focus is. I mean the challenge is think about this as an executive summary of like you said, a 200 page document. And I think what we've put together and what we learned we are sharing with people so they have full insight into what we actually need to course correct on as we go into these final 189 days left and into the future.

[C]

So again, are you going to release, you mentioned executive summary. Are you going to release an official executive summary, make that public?

[D]

We've been releasing that John, is what I've been saying to you.

[C]

Well, you said lesson there's the Democratic playbook, the playbook that you said you can sign up for in DNC for sure. But I know that, you know, NBC News said that before Easter. About a month ago you told DNC officers on a call to expect an executive summary in short order. 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 report's release that a summary was forthcoming and he backed off based on that promise. So you've been saying it coming weeks on the executive like when can people, when can people expect an accurate.

[E]

And we've already been sharing that with a number of folks and we'll continue to share it with folks including the

[D]

DNC and other people. The reality is we're not hiding the ball on this. We have been sharing those things out. Happy to get you over what we have been sharing out, John. The reality is that there's no smoking gun here. And as much as people would like to keep focusing in on those pieces, we what they're ignoring is that we're sharing out the lessons. We have been incorporating those and we have actually been putting those lessons into action which I'm most proud of. Look, we are 189 days away from this election. You said on the top end of this that what you care most about is helping us to win elections. Okay, let's focus on the elections coming up.

[E]

John, you know what?

[C]

Yeah, well, I mean I wanna focus on winning them. I feel like an autopsy on what went wrong and when we lost the popular vote in all those states in 2024. And figuring out what went wrong based on a big report is pretty, pretty important for everyone to know.

[E]

I've spent my entire career, John, as you know, since 1990, winning elections up and down the ballot, both in Minnesota and across the country. I appreciate it and I'm happy to talk to you about winning elections. If you want to actually talk about

[D]

elections, I'm happy to talk to you about those. But again, you're proving the point that

[E]

I think many folks, I think, are

[D]

frustrated in this party, which is people want to turn backwards to relitigate the 2024 election, to point fingers, to place

[E]

blame, to make you wanna learn lessons.

[D]

Like you said, well, listen, to win elections, if they wanna win elections. I'm happy to share what we learn in the way of the lessons on why we lost the 24 election and the years preceding that. Happy to share those. We're sharing those out with everyone. But again, this conversation doesn't help us actually win elections.

[E]

All it does is continue to turn people inward.

[D]

What we need to do is focus on the work we need to do. In 189 days, we learn the lessons. And I'm happy to go over what those lessons are. I'm happy to go over them with anyone who wants to talk about them, John. But what I'm not going to do is release a report that turns everyone backwards trying to either point fingers or place blame and actually ignore their own responsibility in helping us to fix the situation. The reality is we all have a responsibility, yourself, myself, everyone, in actually learning those lessons, focusing on the upcoming election, putting them into action so we don't

[E]

repeat those same mistakes.

[D]

That's what we've been focused on, John.

[B]

Hot Save America is brought to you by Zebiotics Pre alcohol.

[C]

You know how we feel about zebiotics at this point.

[B]

I think I need to stock up again. I feel like there's a lot of events coming up.

[A]

There's a code at the end of this copy.

[C]

Yeah. And because I can't.

[B]

I can't skip Zbiotics anymore because I

[C]

did a couple nights ago and it was.

[B]

It's just tough. You just feel terrible.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

Zebiotics Pre Alcohol Probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's a buildup of this byproduct, not dehydration that's to blame for rough days after drinking pre alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just just remember to make pre alcohol your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow. From the start of baseball season and music festival circuits, April is a sprint of outdoor celebrations we're running. Don't let a rough next day keep you on the sidelines. Drink pre alcohol to stay ahead of the game and make the most of every sunny Saturday. Go to zebiotics.com crooked to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use crooked at checkout. ZBiotics is back with 100% money back guarantee, so if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they will refund your money, no questions asked. Remember to head to zebiotics.com crooked and use the code CROOKED at checkout for 15% off positive America is brought to

[A]

you by the Obama Foundation America it's time to bring change home. The Obama Presidential center is opening this summer and tickets go on sale starting May 6. In his farewell address, President Obama asked Americans to believe not in his ability to create change, but in their own wow. Now the Obama Presidential center is opening as a global center for change on the south side of Chicago, and it's an entire campus designed to empower people of all ages to turn inspiration into impact. From immersive experiences and stunning gardens to an athletic center and public library, it's a place for everyone to reconnect with hope and discover their potential to create change.

[C]

How excited are you to reconnect with hope?

[A]

Honestly, pretty excited at this point. It's been gone for a while. I'm very excited to be at the Obama Presidential Center. A lot of us are going to go this summer to check it out.

[C]

We love the Obama Foundation.

[A]

I want to just live in some nostalgia for a minute. Remember that politics doesn't have to be like it is right now. Be among the first to visit this new American landmark when it opens this June. Tickets are available beginning May 6th. Visit obama.org to plan your visit the Obama Presidential Center. Bring change home.

[C]

So Steve Shale, longtime Democratic strategist who's run Florida for the party, told the Washington examiner that there's a, quote, financial penalty specifically tied to burying the autopsy to because donors want a clearer accounting before recommitting. The DNC is entering April with negative net cash on hand. So even on your own, you know, standard of does this help us win? Is it possible that the Autopsy decision is actually costing you the money you need to win.

[E]

That's just inaccurate, John. And I'm sure you follow the campaign finance reports like I do. We raised $105 million in 2025, a record amount of money for the first year.

[C]

You're not, you don't, you're not have negative cash on hand right now. You don't, you don't have. That's made a negative cash on you.

[D]

We do have debt, John, and that's because I took out a loan last year to make sure we can make deep investments.

[E]

You know what we've been doing, John?

[D]

We've raised a record amount of money, $105 million. It's the most raised for the first year chair of any DNC chair in the history of this party. And you know what's great? You know what's great about it? We raised in 2017, which is an analogous year, a year right after a presidential loss. Tom Perez raised $40 million less than

[E]

what we raised this year.

[B]

He didn't have.

[C]

He didn't have the debt that you guys had.

[D]

Yes, he did. He had $76 million in debt.

[E]

And so my point, my point to

[D]

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 was raised. 85 million of it came from grassroots donors, which is a record amount of

[E]

grassroots donations raised in the history of the Democratic Party. That shows the energy that's out there.

[D]

The average contribution is $51, by the way, John.

[E]

And you know, we raised more than

[D]

any of the other committees last year, the ds, the dccc. And I will just tell you this. All of the Republican committees raised more than the dnc. And so that's just a reality of coming out of a year when you lose the presidential election, when you're the party that's out of pocket, of course

[E]

you're going to not raise as much money as the Republicans.

[D]

But to suggest that we're not raising money is inaccurate.

[E]

We raised $32 million.

[D]

We raised $32 million in the first quarter. But what we're doing that's a little different, John, is we're spending it. We're raising it, and we're spending it because one of the lessons we learned.

[C]

But you're spending more than you. I mean, so you guys have 13.9 million cash on hand, right? I'm reading the report. 13.9 million cash on hand, 18.3 million in debt. So that's roughly negative $4.4 million. And I know it's a tough environment for the party out of power, but the DSCC and the DCCC and these Senate candidates have plenty of money. They're all doing great. So it seems like this is an issue unique to the dnc.

[E]

That's not accurate, John.

[B]

Listen, what part is not accurate?

[E]

The reality is we're spending money as we raise it to win elections and to build infrastructure. We have invested significant amounts of money. Record investments in Virginia and New Jers, investments in Mississippi in their state legislative races to help them flip the Republican supermajority in their state legislature. Investments in the Miami mayoral race to help us win a Democratic elected mayor in the first time in 30 years. Investments in the PSC races in Georgia to help us win the first two non federal elected races, statewide races in 20 years in their history.

[D]

You know, investments throughout the country up and down the ballot and investments in infrastructure, including the largest investments ever in a 50 state party strategy where we're

[E]

making the biggest investments in building out

[D]

the infrastructure of our state and local party committees. You know, one of the lessons we learned, by the way, John, from the last election is that we waited too

[E]

long to spend money.

[D]

In fact, the Republican party starting in 2020, right after Biden won that race, the Democratic Party packed up the campaign infrastructure. Trump and the Republicans kept going, they kept spending money, they kept organizing, they kept communicating with voters. We did not. And as a result, they had a three and a half year long head start going into the 2024 election. We had 10 million Democrats who actually chose the couch instead of voting in 2024. And part of the reason 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 program that's already engaging through year round organizing those voters who dropped off in 2024. You have to spend money to win elections. And one of the lessons we learn is if we wait. Now look, I know you came up in a certain time and day in politics, but the old conventional wisdom, John, it doesn't fly anymore. The old conventional wisdom is that you waited to make investments until the final three months of the election because that's when people are paying attention. Well, guess what, that's bullshit. It's shown we have to start early, we have to build that infrastructure, we have to flex that muscle early of having conversations with voters so that we actually position ourselves to win. Now, are you criticizing me for spending money early? Because that seems to Be what the thing is. And guess what?

[B]

No, I'm.

[C]

No, no. I think it's great that you're spending money early and I think it's very important to, to invest in state parties. I think a 50 state strategy is extremely important. But we're talking about two different things. We're talking about spending money and raising money. And you raised $11.4 million in 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 otherwise the difference between investment and just outrunning your costs and taking on a loan because of that is, doesn't seem like a much of a different difference to me.

[E]

It's not outrunning our cost because we're able to make these investments all throughout the country and race after race in

[D]

our state party infrastructure, in our local party infrastructure. If we weren't able to keep up

[E]

in terms of building out this infrastructure,

[D]

then 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 direct involvement in.

[E]

And I just this to you John,

[D]

because it was a bet we made. And I get it. Again, all the folks in DC, what they like to, they seem obsessed about and they spend a lot of time thinking about is 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? John, at the end of the day, our job is to build infrastructure that our candidates can tap into to do the things that isn't the first, isn't

[C]

the most important job of a DNC chair to go and raise money and obviously like the.

[E]

No, guess what?

[D]

The job of the DNA, unfortunately, no, the job of the DNC chair is singular.

[E]

It's to win.

[D]

And guess what I've been doing the

[E]

last year and a half win.

[D]

And guess what I did for 14

[E]

years in a very purple state win, John. And I'm just telling you right now,

[D]

I think you and others who continue to bet against the DNC keep betting because. Because guess what, here's the reality, John. We're winning and we're winning because I'm defying.

[C]

The investments you're making are not. I mean obviously there's a difference between off year elections and midterm elections and what it's going to take to build the kind of infrastructure we need to win in 2028. Right? I mean I just think that that's, that's it. You've 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 Party of Guam and the party of the Northern Mariana Islands, who get basically the same check as Pennsylvania or Wisconsin or North Carolina. I get 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 places without federal races. And so I just wonder if you have this much debt, is like that the right allocation of money to be giving it to state, state parties in Guam and Northern Mariana Islands when, you know, Axios reported that there's also contemplating layoffs at the dnc.

[E]

There's no. Again, John, you're just throwing out a bunch of garbage. We've never.

[C]

That's what the report was.

[E]

We've never contemplated layoffs at the dnc. I haven't laid anyone off since I've been a DNC chair. And so I just want to be very clear with you again and your listeners, because you're just repeating garbage, you know, potshots at the dnc. I'm used to taking the potshots, by the way, you know, and I think the mistake that you and others make is, you know, somehow I just don't care.

[D]

I came to this job for one

[E]

thing, which is to win.

[D]

And if it wasn't so you think.

[C]

But you think that state, you think the state party allocation to, like the Guam and everything is worthwhile allocation of funds?

[E]

I think it is a worthwhile allocation

[D]

because when we organize everywhere, we can win anywhere. And it's important for us not to just focus on federal power at the

[E]

expense of state and local power. This is where I'm challenging the conventional wisdom of all these smart people in Washington, D.C. here, which is that the only thing that matters is control of Congress and the presidency. My job is to help us win

[D]

everywhere, to build power up and down

[E]

the ballot throughout the country, including in our territories.

[D]

And so you and I can just disagree on whether or not those are

[E]

investments that are worthwhile.

[D]

I believe they are worthwhile.

[E]

It's important for us to actually build

[D]

power for our party and our party values everywhere.

[E]

There's Democrats, and we're going to continue to do that. And so whether you think that's a

[D]

worthwhile investment or not, that's fine.

[E]

You know, you can take your check back if you don't believe it's a good investment, John. But let me just say this.

[D]

The role of the Democratic Party is

[E]

to build infrastructure everywhere so that we can win. Let me give you a couple examples of what that infrastructure is.

[D]

You know, our voter file and our organizing tools and our data. Every candidate, whether they're running for school board or president, relies on that. We spend over $10 million a year on that. John.

[E]

That's a critical piece of the infrastructure that people rely on. Without the dnc, they would have to do that on their own.

[D]

All of these candidates, our voter protection and legal infrastructure that we build, every committee and every candidate relies on us to be out there filing lawsuits and protecting the vote. We filed over 30 lawsuits, which is 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 orders. This is a piece of the infrastructure people rely on.

[B]

Pod Save America is brought to you by hims. ED is way more common than most guys think. Millions of guys deal with it at some point, and that's exactly why HIMS offers a straightforward way to handle it. HIMS connects you with licensed healthcare providers online, giving you simple access to legitimate ED treatment options from home. No awkward appointments, no pharmacy lines. Just complete a simple online intake and a provider will review your information to determine if treatment is right for you. If prescribed, your treatment ships directly to your door in discreet packaging that includes Sildenafil, also known as generic for Viagra, available through Hims at up to 95% less than the brand named version. And if that option isn't right for you, there are additional treatment options available so you can find what works best for your body. It's straightforward, transparent and designed to make getting care feel easy. To get simple online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, weight loss and more, visit hims.com crooked that's hims.com crooked for your free online visit hims.com crooked prescription required. See website for details and important safety information. Sildenafil is the generic version of Viagra. Viagra is a registered trademark of Viatra Specialty llc. HIMS is not affiliated with or endorsed by Beatrice.

[F]

Don't you wish everything was more rewarding with Rakuten? Almost everything is. You can earn cash back on those new shoes you've been wanting. You can save on the next trip you book. You can cash in on groceries. Just join, shop your favorite brands and save. And when it's time to redeem Those rewards, choose PayPal, check built points or Cash out with Gift Cards. Eligible American Express card members can choose to earn membership rewards points Instead of cash back, terms and conditions apply. So go ahead, take a trip, fill a cart, order dessert. Rakuten is a world of rewards. Join today for free. Go to rakuten.com or get the app that's R a k u t e

[G]

n. Are you concerned about microplastics in your home? Blueland makes it easy to make sustainable choices. Blueland cleaning sprays, toilet bowl cleaner and dishwasher and laundry detergent tablets are free from dyes, parabens and harsh chemicals. Blueland is a certified B corp and Leaping Bunny Cruelty Free certified. Their formulas are EPA Safer Choice certified. And many products have also earned Cradle to Cradle's gold material health certificate. Get 15% off your first order by going to blueland.com crooked blueland.com/crooked.

[C]

You mentioned the voter file. 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 accurate? Did you guys buy the Harris campaign's voter file?

[E]

No, that's not.

[C]

That didn't happen.

[E]

No. You're talking about buying a fundraising list, but that's not a voter file.

[C]

The fundraising list.

[E]

Yeah.

[C]

Did you. Did you. Of course.

[E]

You purchased that.

[C]

I was just wondering about the rationale for that, because it feels like the DNC and the Harris campaign were operating off largely the same data infrastructure during the campaign. So what did buying the list?

[E]

Things, John, Data infrastructure and fundraising list, those are separate things. And I Again, but even in the

[C]

fundraising list, you guys didn't work up like that was additive. Their fundraising list for $6.5 million was additive to that. That was a good investment.

[D]

We purchased that list.

[E]

And let me just say this, John, that that happens all the time in campaigns and elections, as you know.

[C]

Oh, I know. It's just a big chunk of money. That's why I was just wondering.

[E]

But as you know, John, that happens all the time. So it's not. It's not unique to this dnc. It's not unique to prior DNC chairs.

[D]

It's not unique to campaigns or elections, frankly.

[E]

Campaigns and elections. Campaigns at the end of an election

[D]

sell their list to cover their debt. And so there's nothing, nothing new about that, John. And of course, that's one of the biggest lists and the most valuable list out there.

[E]

It's a great investment for the dnc.

[D]

I'm trying to actually help us raise

[E]

money so we can compete, so we can win.

[D]

And that was not only a great investment, it's already paid for itself. You know, and we're glad to be able to do that. And, you know, we buy lists all the time.

[E]

That's what people do in this business.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Look, here's the reason I'm just being so tough about all of this. I just think that what I have seen happen before is, especially in 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. Look, I saw this in 2022. We did well enough in the midterms. And Democratic insiders, Biden 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 so, because I think we need to win 2028 more than anything. But it is, it concerns me that I see two things. One, this autopsy, which you campaigned on releasing, and, and I know you're releasing lessons, but are hiding still 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, 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 chairs and the DNC committee members who are asking you to release it. They're asking you to release it.

[E]

I know you want to keep focusing on that and that's fine.

[C]

Well, I'm saying, and I do think that that affects the, and the fundraising isn't going well either.

[E]

So I feel fundraising, that is just completely inaccurate, John.

[C]

I mean, you had, you had a great first, you had a great first year in 2025.

[E]

And we've had a great first quarter.

[D]

$32 million we raised in the first quarter. We raised $4 million in March 30than

[E]

Tom Perez did in 2018.

[D]

We have.

[C]

That's excluding debt, though.

[E]

That's excluding debt.

[D]

We have 50% more cash on hand

[E]

than Tom Perez did.

[C]

But you're excluding debt. You don't have 50% more cash on hand if you include your debt, John.

[D]

We do, because at the end of the day, we can pay that debt off whenever the hell we want. I could hold that debt until the end of the year. So the reality is there's nothing that's holding me back in terms of the cash on hand. I have to spend it on Elections, I can carry that debt all the way through the end of this year and beyond if I want. So that's just inaccurate. I know you know campaigns, but you're just spewing stuff out that's just wrong.

[C]

I'm just, I'm saying that I saw that talking point about 50% more, and it's based on the document.

[D]

We raised $32 million in the first quarter. Okay. We have $15 million on hand. We're able to spend that money on continuing to build our infrastructure and to help us win elections. Okay. And we've continued to raise money. Nothing has slowed down. In fact, the fundraising has picked up significantly since even the last November's elections in 2025.

[C]

So listen, and I know the grassroots fundraising has been great. I know that. I concede that for sure. I just. There's plenty of reports about this, I've talked to plenty of people about this, 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.

[E]

Yeah, I'm just not seeing that, John. And I appreciate that. And you know, I don't believe that

[D]

to be the case.

[E]

Maybe you're talking to donors that I'm not.

[D]

I highly doubt it. But the donors I'm talking to who

[E]

are holding back, they're not holding back because they're frustrated with me. And they're not holding back because they're frustrated with the dnc. Just the opposite. And so I think people see that we are actually putting into action the lessons we've learned. We're actually building the infrastructure we need. We're competing up, down the ballot, we're making the investments throughout the country to make sure that we're organizing everywhere.

[D]

I mean, part of the challenge, John, is we've talked about this on the show before, 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 campaign cycle, one candidate, 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 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 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 the permanent infrastructure we need to have a long term strategy, then you get blame because you don't have enough 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 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 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, of a long term strategy. I'm challenging the conventional wisdom that we just focus on federal power at the expense of state and local power. Right. I am 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? 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 next four, four to six years. So I say all this. I get where your frustration comes from.

[E]

Right.

[D]

But as I said, you know, and I, and I get it, you know, there are people, including you and others, who are in a different place on this chairs race. But since I've come here, I have 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 Miami. I would go and ask you to talk to Alicia Johnson and Pete Peter

[E]

Hubbard, the new PSC commissioners in Georgia.

[D]

I would go and ask you to talk to Mikey Sherrill 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 Ramette in Fort Worth, Texas, and many, many other campaigns and candidates that we've helped over the course of the last year and a half. Because what they will tell you is that the DNC was critically involved in those races. Was that a good investment? I suppose by some people's standards, 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?

[C]

I want to make sure you guys have enough money. And I know there's, you know, fundraising issues that you're being RNC raised nearly double than you guys. So I want to make sure you have enough money. And you know, the DS and the D trip and everyone else and the Senate candidates are raising a whole bunch of money and matching Republicans. So I just want to make sure you guys have the money.

[E]

We're not matching Republicans. There's not matching Republicans.

[D]

Every, every Republican committee outraised their counterpart,

[C]

the rnc, not by double as you guys in the rnc, but I hear your point.

[D]

They did not raise us by double either. We raised $32 million to their 56 million or $54 million.

[C]

I'm going by the March numbers, which is 11 to 21, but I hear you. I hear you. All right. Well, I appreciate you, I appreciate you coming on. I appreciate you answering these questions. And I just, I do hope it was interesting to learn that you do still plan on releasing an executive summary of the full after action report publicly to people who want it. That is coming soon, I guess.

[D]

We've been releasing those.

[E]

We'll continue to release.

[C]

We've been releasing them. You've been releasing an executive summary or you've been doing individual lessons?

[D]

Yes, we've been releasing those lessons. The lessons are the summary. We've been releasing those since the beginning of this year. And briefing after briefing, we published them in our playbook, as I mentioned. We'll continue to release them.

[E]

And so if anyone wants to see

[D]

some of that work already, go to 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 was my commitment when we talked last, is that we were going to help make sure people

[E]

understood what lessons we needed to learn going into this election. And we'll continue to do that. So thank you.

[C]

Thank you. Thank you, Ken Martin, for joining.

[E]

As always, thank you, John.

[B]

If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free or get access to our subscriber discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our Friends of the pod [e-mail] friends or subscribe on Apple Podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed. Also, be sure to follow Pod Save America on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube for full episodes, bonus content and more. And before you hit that next button, you can help boost this episode by leaving us a review and by sharing it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Saul Rubin and Emma Ilik Frank. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Reid Churlin is our executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madelyn Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production.

[C]

Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant.

[B]

Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Ben Hefcote, Molly Lobel, Kiril Palaviv, Kenny Moffatt, and David Toles, our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.