The chairwoman of the Democratic party attributed the popularity of both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump as evidence that Americans are fed up with their current government.
“People just want to have confidence in their government again,” said Debbie Wasserman Schultz at a Thursday morning breakfast with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. The executive branch of the government has been run by Democratic president Barack Obama since 2009, and Wasserman Schultz herself is a member of the House of Representatives.
The comment sounded similiar to one made by Democratic presidential candidate (and former Obama secretary of state) Hillary Clinton in a recent interview with ABC News. Clinton said the American people “need a leader who cares about them again.”
Asked repeatedly about the appeal of outsider candidates like Trump and Sanders, Wasserman Schultz described an America that is “coming through a very tough economic period and feeling a lack of confidence in the ground that they’re standing on being very firm.” She did not specifically mention the current president.
Wasserman Schultz has long had a tenuous relationship with Obama and his political team not long after the Florida congresswoman took over the top job at the DNC in 2011. And earlier Thursday another presidential candidate, former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, accused the DNC chair of favoring Clinton in the primary:
“I’m told that this is the prerogative of the chair,” O’Malley continued. “There’s always an inclination, I think, for old relationships to kind of circle the wagons and protect one another.”
Wasserman Schultz claimed the DNC chair must remain neutral in the primary and that “I really try to rigidly adhere to that.” Asked by THE WEEKLY STANDARD about O’Malley’s charge that she is rigging the process in Clinton’s favor, Wasserman Schultz dismissed it.
“A couple days ago, I think it was Drudge Report that suggested that I obviously delayed the debates, our first debate, to mid-October, because I’m in the tank for Joe Biden. So, every day someone is going to say something about my intentions,” she said. “Like I said, I have a party to run. I have to simultaneously make sure that we are getting ready to make sure that the party is prepared to support our eventual nominee and at the same time manage a neutral primary nominating contest, which I’m going to do.”
O’Malley has been speaking out loudly for more debates than the official six sanctioned by the DNC. Wasserman Schultz denied several times that she would change her mind on the number of debates. “There are many venues and opportunities for candidates to interact with voters,” she said.
