Dem NJ Sen. Cory Booker trashes own party: ‘Desperately needs new leadership’
WASHINGTON — Dem New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker on Sunday said he’s been sick and tired of his party’s leadership for “a long time’’ — revealing his disgust after its release of an error-riddled autopsy on its 2024 election debacle.
“The [Democratic National Committee] has got to do a lot better if they’re going to meet this moment in history,” the liberal pol told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“The Democratic Party desperately needs new leadership,” he said. “I have had frustrations … with the Democratic Party for a long time.
“What is going to make the Republicans gleeful is if we’re talking about each other in the Democratic Party and not talking about the realities that Americans are facing,” Booker said.
The Garden State Democrat declined to give specifics when pressed about which leaders need to be replaced. He denied that he was talking about embattled Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
Last week, the DNC faced an uproar after it was pressured into releasing a draft postmortem of the Democrats’ disastrous 2024 election loss.
The draft, which was compiled by veteran Democratic strategist Paul Rivera, was riddled with typos, missing sections, incorrect data and a lack of citations.
Progressives also raged that it mentioned nothing about the Israel-Hamas conflict and barely noted widespread internal consternation about former President Joe Biden’s age.
DNC Chairman Ken Martin, who resisted pressure to disclose the findings for months, admitted the draft wasn’t “ready for primetime.”
The release created headaches for Democrats and poured fuel on the fire of already simmering frustration with DNC management.
“I am tired of all this machination about party politics. We are in a crisis right now, millions of Americans losing their health insurance, their costs skyrocketing,” Booker said.
“You can damn well be sure that I’m going to be talking about what our party needs to do to change,” he said.
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Booker is up for reelection in November.
