Donna Brazile on Clinton campaign arrogance: 'It was a cult'

The Clinton era of politics really must be over to have a former DNC chair talking like this about the former nominee. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe Wednesday Donna Brazile compared the campaign to a cult and suggested their arrogant behavior was at least part of the reason for Clinton’s loss.

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About midway through this interview, panel member Mike Barnicle asked Brazile, “Why is it that you and several other people who I respect greatly could not get to the Clinton campaign, 2-3 weeks out before the election, with the fact that they were incompetent, that they were depending on algorithms rather than common sense, that they had no sense of scheduling going to industrial states like Wisconsin and Ohio?”

“Why is it that so many people were either mute, reluctant, or unable to crash into that inner circle and tell them ‘You’re going to lose the election’?” Barnicle asked.

“I tried, okay” Brazile replied. She added, “But you could not crack them.” Brazile said whenever she would hear from Democrats in various places asking for more support, the response from the Clinton camp was always, “Madam chair, it’s okay.” “It was so condescending,” Brazile said of the campaign’s response.

“Mika, you know what I did last week because I’m this kind of girl. I went over and told Robby [Mook] my book is coming out,” Brazile said. She continued, “I text people. I call them. I’m not scared. And I said ‘the book is coming out, it’s going to be a little controversial, it’s going to be a little hot’ because you know it’s dripping with a little hot sauce.”

“And you know what they did? The same thing they did to me last year, which really made me mad. They did this,” Brazile said, making a dismissive motion as if brushing away a fly. Brazile appeared genuinely irritated by this in a way that might help explain why she’s bucking Clinton world so hard right now.

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Host Joe Scarborough then picked up on the theme of Clinton campaign arrogance. “Donald Trump is president, I still believe, not because of Donald Trump but because of mistakes that the Clinton campaign made—as well as James Comey, as well as the Russians,” Scarborough said. He added, “I’ll put it all in there but it should have never been a close race.” Scarborough then asked Brazile, “Bottom-line it for us. Why did they lose? Was it, at the end of the day, arrogance?”

“Yes, Joe. It was a cult,” Brazile replied. She continued, “I felt like it was a cult. You could not penetrate them.”

Here’s the full interview. Mike Barnicle’s question comes about 10 minutes in. Joe Scarborough’s question is near the end. In between those two questions, there’s another interesting tidbit about the Russian hack of the DNC. Brazile says the Russians didn’t just steal emails they “wiped out our files” and were still inside the system until late October.

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