Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign manager said Wednesday that Democrats would be better served if Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was relieved of her duties as head of the DNC, which he said would make it easier for the party to unify and win the White House in November.
Jeff Weaver, who heads up Sanders’ campaign, told CNN Wednesday morning that someone else could have a more “positive role” in bringing the party together, pointing to Wasserman Schultz’s actions throughout the primary process. He mentioned her role in limiting debates, cutting off the Sanders campaign’s data before the Iowa caucuses, and most recently, her saying that the Vermont senator added “fuel to the fire” by not condemning the actions of his supporters at the Nevada Democratic Convention.
“I think what the party needs is a person at the head of the DNC who can help unify the party. Who can bring the various factions of the party together,” Weaver said, adding that he has “good relations” with many at the DNC at the moment and speaks to them regularly.
“Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been, I think, unfair in many respects going back as early as the scheduling of the debates, scheduling them on weekends, scheduling only a few, cutting off the Sanders data right before Iowa in a move that was at least privately denounced by many at the DNC,” Weaver continued. “She certainly came out and tried to put the gasoline on the whole Nevada thing. So I just think that there’s been a pattern of conduct, which calls into question whether she can be the kind of unifying force that we need at the Democratic Party.”
“Do you want to see her go?” host Kate Bolduan asked Weaver.
“Well, I think someone else could play a more positive role, let me put it that way,” Weaver responded.
After Bolduan told him that it sounds like “that’s one way of saying yes,” Weaver said that he was “trying to be diplomatic” while flashing a grin.
The comments from the Sanders campaign come only hours after a report emerged that Democrats on Capitol Hill are mulling weather to remove Wasserman Schultz as the head of the party. The Hill reported that some Democrats have been privately meeting to discuss the party’s future with the Democratic National Convention set to kick off in two months.
“There have been a lot of meetings over the past 48 hours about what color plate do we deliver Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s head on,” a one pro-Clinton Democratic senator told the publication.
