Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville has pitched a new leader for the Democratic National Committee as the party grapples with reports of internal chaos and financial turmoil.
Carville, recording a podcast update Sunday from his bed where he is recovering from surgery, suggested gun control activist David Hogg could lead the party instead of the current chair, Ken Martin.
“If David Hogg wants to take it over, then, I ain’t stopping you—go ahead, man," he said of Hogg, who was previously vice chair.
Carville’s proposal came after a weekend of damaging coverage for the Democrats, including a report that Martin was cracking under the pressure of the job and the stress of raising money for the looming midterms.
“I did want to...weigh in on two stories I saw,” Carville said.
“One...was a story on the DNC that basically said it’s dysfunctional. It’s just difficult to do anything with it. And it’s all true.”
The remarks were prompted by a New York Times report that painted a bleak picture of Martin’s leadership, saying he had become “increasingly isolated, gripped by the fear that he will lose his job and relying on a vanishingly small circle of people he trusts.”
The Times also reported that Martin threw his phone onto a junior aide’s desk during a moment of frustration earlier this month, prompting a formal complaint to the DNC’s human resources department. The internal chaos comes as the DNC remains $2 million in debt, the publication reported.
“DNC dysfunctional. Water wet. Gravity real,” Carville quipped.
“He threw I don’t know a salt shaker, threw something at a desk...god forbid that would ever happen,” he added.
Despite Carville arguing that the report was not revelatory, he said new leadership could mean the DNC “could be somewhat relevant.”
The DNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hogg, 26, was vice chair of the DNC for a few months last year, between February and June, before a clash over his push for new blood in seats where incumbent Democrats weren’t his preferred candidates led to the DNC voiding his election and Hogg declaring he would not run in a re-do.
Martin was the chair who oversaw the removal of Hogg.
Hogg, a school shooting survivor who has strong views on the Second Amendment, has been a political activist since the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School Shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, when he was just 17.
