Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin was pressed by liberal podcast host Jon Favreau about why he wasn’t releasing the 2024 autopsy report in a contentious interview.
On Tuesday’s installment of “Pod Save America,” the podcast founded by former President Obama speechwriters, Favreau sparred with Martin for more than ten minutes over the party chair’s reversal on releasing the 200-page autopsy report laying out why Democratic nominee Kamala Harris was defeated by President Donald Trump in the last election, and pointing to Martin’s past criticism of the DNC for not releasing the 2016 autopsy report on Hillary Clinton’s defeat.
“What I said all along, even when I ran for this position, is that we were going to focus on the things that will help us win the upcoming election, right? Making sure that we learn the right lessons that could help inform our victories. And that’s what we’ve done,” Martin told Favreau.
“We said this when we sent out the press release back in November saying we weren’t going to release the report. We are going to actually keep our focus on those lessons, and we released 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,” Martin said.
“I don’t know about you, Jon, 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,” Martin continued. “The only thing we can do is actually change what happens in the future, including the 26 election cycle, 28 and beyond.“
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“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,’ especially why we lost. So what changed between August and December?” Favreau pressed Martin. “Why not release the full report? What’s in the report that you wouldn’t want publicized?”
Martin insisted there wasn’t a “smoking gun,” which prompted Favreau to ask, “Why wouldn’t you just release it then?”
“Because we want to keep the focus on the lessons,” the DNC chair responded. “Because what ends up happening here is that people, of course, want to weaponize the report in a way to look backwards, to point fingers and place blame in 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.“
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He disputed reports that the DNC spent six figures to develop the autopsy report, insisting the people behind the report weren’t paid for their work. He also appeared to shrug off calls from various DNC members for the report’s release.
“Jon, you’re proving the point…. the obsession on the report without actually focusing in on the lessons because people believe there’s something there’s some sort of magic silver bullet in there that’s going to solve all of our ills at the Democratic Party. There’s not,” Martin said.
“I don’t think there’s gonna be a magic silver bullet, though. Who thinks that? That’s such a straw[man],” Favreau pushed back, later pressing him, “When you’re on the campaign trail and you talked about definitely releasing an autopsy and criticizing the DNC for not releasing the autopsy in 2016, in your mind, you thought, ‘I’m going to do one, but only release certain lessons and not the full report?”
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“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,” Martin responded, insisting the DNC has been transparent in releasing its “lessons” to party members.
“The reality is, is that there’s no smoking gun here. And as much as people would like to keep focusing in on those pieces, what they’re ignoring is that we’re sharing out the lessons. We have been incorporating those, and we have actually been putting those lessons into action, which I’m most proud of,” he added.
