Former Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile told an audience at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on Thursday that Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi should no longer lead her party’s caucus in the House.
“I don’t want the Dianne Feinsteins and the Nancy Pelosis of the world to leave the room. I want them to just scoot over; make room,” she said at an event for her new book, Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
In the book, Brazile alleges that Hillary Clinton had an unfair advantage in the Democratic Party’s presidential primary because she controlled the purse-strings at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from a very early stage in the election — well before the first debate against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and other rivals.
Brazil claims that the process was “rigged” against Sanders — an accusation for which she has come under fire from Clinton and others in her party.
On Thursday, she used softer terms, according to the Mercury News, which said Brazile “seemed to walk her claims back”:
“I found no evidence that the quote-unquote primary was rigged,” Brazile said, explaining that she instead found evidence that the Clinton campaign was in control of certain parts of the DNC before Clinton won the primary. “I was worried that this would give the impression that the DNC was in the tank for one candidate, and that in my judgment was immoral,” she said.
Pelosi remains firmly in control of her caucus heading into the 2018 midterm elections. Feinstein faces an unprecedented challenge from within, in the form of State Senate pro Tem Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles).
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.