A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Democratic National Committee's report into how Democrats lost the 2024 election to Donald Trump, first released in May, was missing a key chapter. That's what the chapter's author told The New York Times. And the newspaper's national political correspondent Shane Goldmacher is here now to discuss. So, Shane, what's actually in this missing chapter?
SHANE GOLDMACHER: Yeah. So the report that the party released back in May they said was a flawed report, and they were releasing it after months of pressure to just get out a document because there was these questions. What were you hiding by not releasing this chapter? And now the author said, even in that effort at transparency, what they've released doesn't actually release everything he turned in.
And this so-called missing chapter has a few things. The No. 1 is that it brings up Joe Biden's decision to run in the first place, which was sort of conspicuously absent from what the party had put out. And it labels this as probably the single point of failure for 2024 - with a question mark - right? - but raises this question.
I think most notably, it goes after the role of political strategists leading the Democratic Party who have become, quote, "generationally wealthy" and whether that wealth disconnects them from the needs of the voters whose votes the Democrats have needed. And the author, Paul Rivera, wrote that people trying to change that system, quote, "keep banging their heads up against a system proven to be inflexible and self-enriching."
MARTÍNEZ: So, Shane, all of what you just said is something I think everyone has been discussing for years and years openly. Why would all this be so sensitive?
GOLDMACHER: Yeah. So what's interesting is not just what's in the chapter but how it's come to be. So again, the party chairman, Ken Martin, had said at the beginning of last year when he got the job, we need to look back and figure out what went wrong in 2024 to make sure we never make those mistakes again as a Democratic party. And then at the end of last year, he said, actually, we've started winning all these elections. We're not going to release a report. And there was these months of pressure that built up. And so he put out this draft report, saying, we never finished this. We disavow this document. But, like, here's what we have, so you know we're not hiding anything.
And so he says he, in fact, never got this chapter from the author. And it's a - really a twisted tale where the author says he handed it to him in a printed binder. The chairman says he didn't get it. And the whole thing is both about the contents and about this remarkable breach between the head of the Democratic Party in America and the guy he had empowered and entrusted to write this report.
MARTÍNEZ: And Martin and Rivera are the only ones that really know what went down between them, right? 'Cause...
GOLDMACHER: Yeah. So much of this took place just between the two of them. It gets into the deleting policies of the Democratic National Committee's email, which, for security purposes, are gone every 30 days. And so it comes down to the story that this guy turned in this chapter, and he provided a copy with - to me that was dated from the - that date six months ago. And the party chairman says he never saw it. And other officials said they never got anything along these lines by email either.
MARTÍNEZ: Not too much time to go before the midterms, Shane. Do you expect Ken Martin to be replaced before then?
GOLDMACHER: You know, he's faced a lot of pressure chiefly because the Democratic Party has such a financial gap to the Republicans. But right now he continues to maintain support of the one group that he most needs, which is the Democratic National Committee. But the big test is going to come from donors and whether they give enough money for the party to compete with the Republicans.
MARTÍNEZ: That's Shane Goldmacher of The New York Times. Shane, thanks a lot.
GOLDMACHER: Thank you.
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