The head of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz says she’ll resign at the end of the convention following controversial emails that were leaked to the public.
Advertisement
Earlier in the day, Wasserman Schultz was replaced as chair of the Democratic National Convention, which begins Monday in Philadelphia.
And while he was speaking, Wasserman Schultz announced she would not gavel in the convention, an embarrassing acknowledgment that her presence onstage would only showcase deep party divisions.
Clinton has had a long-standing relationship with the DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
It was unclear whether the resignation Sunday of party chief Debbie Wasserman Schultz would be enough to unite the party behind Hillary Clinton. “She never takes the easy way out”.
“I don’t think she is qualified to be the chair of the DNC not only for these very bad emails, which revealed the prejudice of the DNC, but also because we need a party that reaches out to working people and young people, and I don’t think her leadership style is doing that”, he said.
“I hope Bernie has it after this week”, Bruce Erichbaur of Nashville said.
The WikiLeaks emails were released the same day as Clinton – who has been plagued by her own email scandal on the campaign trail – announced her running mate, Sen.
Republicans, over months of contests throughout the country, picked Trump over 16 other challengers, many of them seasoned politicians.
On Tuesday, Democrats will settle down to the business of officially making Clinton the first female presidential nominee from a major party.
As Wasserman Schultz becomes the outgoing chair, DNC Vice Chairwoman Donna Brazile is serving as the interim chair through the election.
Clinton will accept the Democratic nomination and deliver one of the biggest speeches of her political life – on par with declaring in China that “women’s rights are human rights” and more important than her 2008 concession speech in which she declared she’d placed “18 million cracks” in the glass ceiling.
The rest of her remarks that were videotaped were largely spent attacking Donald Trump and emphasizing that the Jewish community needs to rally behind the Democratic Party and Clinton. “I wouldn’t vote for her for dog catcher”, said Melissa Arab, of Shelby Township, Michigan.
Wasserman Schultz had planned to be among those taking the stage, despite the email hacking controversy.
But it is really no surprise; Wasserman Schultz frequently managed to push even a role that by definition is partisan a step too far.
The emails were leaked from the accounts of seven DNC officials, Wikileaks said.
During the convention’s first hour, Sanders supporters repeatedly booed and chanted, which resulted in a reaction from Clinton delegates and a deafening roar. Tim Kaine, was a disappointment and that he would have preferred Massachusetts Sen. Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, tried to shift blame away from DNC officials to “Russian state actors” who, he said, may have hacked into DNC computers “for the objective of helping Donald Trump”, the Republican presidential nominee.
Asked about the exchanges, Rawlings-Blake said: “Expressing an opinion about a candidate doesn’t mean that you’re in collusion, doesn’t mean that you are actively working against them”.
Democrats aimed to project the image of a party united behind Clinton, but the task was made tougher after a batch of internal Democratic National Committee emails leaked late last week, showing some party officials were biased against Clinton’s opponent, Sanders.
Advertisement
Still, there’s no telling how the email leak will hurt her re-election campaign, said Florida delegate Mitch Ceasar, who has known her for 24 years in Broward County politics.
