The interim chair of the Democratic National Committee admitted Saturday that the Democratic Party “got cocky” in its 2016 election fight, while also blaming Russian hackers.
Speaking at a DNC event in Phoenix, Ariz., Brazile provided an autopsy on why the party failed to win the White House and take back the House and Senate.
“I’m not going to sugercoat it. We failed. We came up short,” Brazile said during introductory remarks. “We made some serious mistakes. Some strategic errors. We got cocky about our invincible blue wall and then we saw it crumble because of just a few thousand votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.”
Brazile then turned her attention to the Russians, who the U.S. intelligence community said worked to “denigrate” Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s chances in her election loss against Donald Trump. Last year hackers broke into the email servers of the DNC, as well as Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Those emails were later leaked via websites like WikiLeaks and revealed some embarrassing, and sometimes damaging information about the inner workings of the Democratic Party structure.
Brazile pinned some of the blame for Clinton’s struggles on “extraordinary circumstances.”
“They turned our own media into a weapon,” Brazile said. “They hired an army of trolls to spread lies and distract from the real issues.”
