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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everyone, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bork, and I am pleased to be joined by Rufus Gifford, who is the finance guru extraordinaire of the Democratic Party. He's held so many different titles, raised so much money for Democrats, that it's impossible to pinpoint one who benefited the most. Probably Obama. I will say we're having Rufus on to talk about people who are having trouble raising money, the Democratic National Committee, and the issues that are taking place there with its chair, Ken Martin. Rufus, thanks for doing this. Really appreciate it.
- [00:31]
B
Thanks, Sam. Very happy to be with you.
- [00:33]
A
The reason I wanted to have you on is you took what I thought was kind of a rather extraordinary step, not something that you normally do, to pen a substack post about the current situation at the dnc. For those that are not caught up, the Democratic National Committee is really lagging in fundraising. It's in debt. There's been calls for the chair, Ken Martin, to step down. There's been a lot of drama there. Rufus, you wrote this substack post where you said the DNC is, quote, spiraling towards irrelevance. You. You warned that they were failing or Martin was failing at his two main jobs, which you said were raising money and messaging relentlessly on the media. You said, quote, at this point, I think there's no saving Martin's chairmanship. And then you said, God willing, we will win in November, despite the brand of the national party, our superior candidates are superior campaigns, and Trump's disastrous regime will likely propel us. I guess I have to start with, why did you feel compelled to do this?
- [01:27]
B
Oh, Sam, you know, it isn't. It's. I love that place. And that's, you know, and I, when I wrote that place, I led with that. I've worked at the DNC so many different times over different chapters of my Life, starting in 2004 and then most recently hand in hand with them in 2024. And it's hard to do it. I will say this, and I'll be very frank with my thought process here. I've been frustrated for a while now. A good year. Plus, it seemed to me that the stories that were coming out of the building were internal squabbles and kind of lack of money and not what I think we all need to be focusing on, which is laser focused on win elections, rebuilding an obviously devastated party. And that got. But I will say something. I held my tongue most of last year, and then I think something really happened to me in March, which was something that I thought was unthinkable a year ago was possible. And that was Democrats have really a serious shot of taking the Senate. Still a reach map's still tough, of course, but a combination of candidate recruitment, Trump's weakness, all the rest, the map is starting to look more favorable. And I think it's a real possibility. Tough, but a real possibility. And thus I threw all of my focus into that and continue to. And the problem that I have right now is that the national party, the DNC in my mind, always just needs to be a team player in a midterm election. I've been at the DNC in a midterm election in many ways. What the building needs to be doing is working with the DS and the DTRIP to ensure that their committees and their candidates are well funded. A narrow path to a Senate and House majority. But that's what we. This is existential, Sam, in every way. I think this is the most important midterm election in a century, and we need to be laser focused on it. And then what I saw was the dnc not just. And I think sometimes it's oversimplified by saying that they're struggling to raise money. The real challenge, Sam, is the reckless spend and the unfocused reckless spend, because as they tout constantly, and probably rightly so, that they're doing an okay job raising money, it's much more about where they are spending it and the fact that we're entering August in this critical election year in debt when they need to be cash rich. And thus, to me, that falls squarely on leadership. And that's why I took it on. And I don't regret it. You're right, it's not something I would typically do, but I don't regret it.
- [04:05]
A
How's the response been?
- [04:09]
B
You know, I will say this. I wrote the piece and I wrote it somewhat, going back a little bit. I hosted the DSCC on Saturday night. And one of the things that was clear out of the briefings that we had over the course of the weekend was that they were having to make up for a fundraising gap that they had. Typically, in any other cycle they would have expected from the dnc. And that was frustrating to me because
- [04:32]
A
it made a DNC transfers, traditionally transfers money to committees.
- [04:37]
B
Yeah. And every other cycle. I think it's certainly in modern history, that's what's happened. And now that they have a gap in their budget and they'll fill it and we'll figure out how to fill it. That's part of the conversations we were having. But then it frustrated me to no end because it was clear in these existential moments, as I said before, where we have the possibility to have a Democratic Senate to block the horrific Trump nominees that potentially protect the Supreme Court. All of this would be predicated on a Democratic Senate majority. And we are messing around after last weekend with giving money to the state parties of Guam. I just. I couldn't take it anymore, Sam. I really couldn't take it anymore. And. Because you know what? And so I just couldn't really hold back. I wrote the article. I couldn't sleep all night. I wrote the article first thing in the morning. I honestly didn't know how it would be respond. I didn't show it to anybody how people would respond. I didn't show it to anybody. I actually went on a bike ride because I'm kind of on vacation this week. And when I got back after an hour, my phone had exploded, the likes of which I hadn't seen in a very, very long time. It struck a nerve. And so the answer to your question is how it's been responded. I will say the response I've gotten has been overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly supportive of what I said, and in particular, the Dems on the inside. So that's, that's, that's. That made gay. And I was nervous, I'll tell you, my husband, I was. I was like, God, did I go too far, my friends? Did I go too far? Did I do something stupid? And. But I don't think I did. I think that the words needed to be said.
- [06:16]
A
Did Ken Martin reach out to you?
- [06:18]
B
I don't want to get into the, like, the, The. I know you do. I know. Like I. There's been an attempt at outreach. Yeah. I have not connected with him.
- [06:31]
A
I have.
- [06:32]
B
And I have not heard from him since.
- [06:33]
A
I won't produce the chair of the Guam Democrat. So you say. You say there's no, there's no. Not really a fundraising problem. But I think the D data doesn't quite. I mean, I understand the spend. The problem you have is with the spend. But there is clearly a problem on the. On the money raised, too, because if you just compare it to the rnc, it's night and day, as our own Lauren Egan reported about this stuff and everyone else, too. I think that the disparity is that the DNC has $2 million in debt. RNC now has 128 million cash on hand. I mean, that's not just a spend problem. And I'm curious what your theories are for on the, on, on the money raising side, because you deal with these people, you ask people a lot of times to write checks for political causes.
- [07:18]
B
Yeah.
- [07:20]
A
What's the issue here? Is and is part of it the threat of getting on Trump's target list?
- [07:27]
B
You know, I think it's less. Look, the answer is I don't think so, because, look, I mean, I'm hosting an event for James Talarico on Sunday. This thing is, you know, sold out and people are flooding money at our, our cand. So I think it is less that I think most Democrats are fired up, they're angry, they see leaders that they want to support. It's not that our candidates are having a shortage of money. I will say that the national brand, and we know this, this has been reported over and over again. It's terrible. It's terrible. And I don't think there has been enough of an effort. And this is in part, the national party needs to do a good bit to rebuild the brand after 2024. And I don't think that' been effective. And this is part of my, like, my messaging argument, I think, especially when you don't have the White House, especially when you don't have a de facto leader of the party, there's no sort of former president who wants to really put themselves out there politically. Right now. The chair of the Democratic Party is the logical person to actually help try to message. And I just don't see that happening. Obviously, you have people like Leader Jeffries and Leader Schumer and they have their own lanes, but you don't have somebody who can just go on TV over and over over again and hit that message home. And I think that's damaging the dumb brand. So. But I know I'm not answering your question directly.
- [08:50]
A
No, but it's an interesting point you bring up because it is, obviously we're talking a lot about the, the money element, but the messaging element, because you, you, I think, properly diagnosed, there's two buckets here for the DNC chair. It's raising and spending money and then it's messaging. It's, it's, it's uncommon how little we see Ken Martin out there in public. And when we do see them in public, it's almost always an effort to defend his own reputation. And I feel like that gets underappreciated a little bit.
- [09:18]
B
Yeah, I think that's fair. And I am someone who believes that fundraising is connected to absolutely everything else you do. So you don't raise money in a vacuum. You don't raise money because you have the best fundraisers out there. You have to.