Clyburn blames media for Democratic failures during MSNBC interview
Rep. James Clyburn said Friday that the media was to blame for Democratic messaging failures during an interview with MSNBC's Ali Velshi.
Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., blamed the media for the Democratic Party's failures on Friday during an interview on MSNBC, while specifically taking aim at the Washington Post.
MSNBC host Ali Velshi asked Clyburn to respond to "valid criticisms" that the Democratic Party has no cohesive message.
"Well, I think the message coming from the Democratic Party is a good message," Clyburn responded. "The problem we’ve got, I’ll say, is that we have to depend upon the media to deliver it."
"If we have The Washington Post, for instance, caving to this wannabe dictator, and we’ve got other media entities that seem to rather push a narrative that will bring eyes to their newspapers or to their television sets and not really give a fair hearing or reporting to what we’re doing," Clyburn continued.
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Rep. Clyburn blamed the media for the Democratic Party's failures during an interview on MSNBC. (Screenshot/MSNBC)
Clyburn explained that he was making multiple town hall appearances across South Carolina, and argued that his message was going to be alarming, but coherent. He said he hoped there were people outside the audience in attendance who would take in the messaging.
He then took time to praise the MSNBC host.
"I have to rely upon people like yourself," he told Velshi. "You do a great job with this. That’s why I like coming on your shows on the weekends, because you do a real good substantive reporting of what the issues are around us."
"But when you’ve got people who say we’re not going to fact-check, we’re going to worry about whether or not you’re telling the truth. And just let the reports go out there. That’s what’s killing us as Democrats, because we don’t have a stomach for just lying," Clyburn said.
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Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., speaks during the 2024 Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago on Monday, August 19, 2024. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
After former Vice President Kamala Harris' loss to President Donald Trump, the party's leadership has struggled to develop a strong message to counter the GOP.
The party's messaging failures were criticized by former Biden press secretary and current MSNBC host, Jen Psaki.
"I feel like when Democrats, and including people who are on television in a variety of ways, were saying things like, ‘authoritarianism is under threat and democracy is on the ballot,’ I think we were speaking in a manner that was so academic and Ivory Tower, it wasn't talking about a lot of the things people actually care about," Psaki argued while appearing on comedian Jon Stewart's "The Weekly Show" podcast in February.
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She went on to say, "So, I don't know that people voted against democracy, I think they voted in some ways against protection of status-quo and kind of the disconnected academic Ivory Tower elite language that is too often used by Democrats, sometimes on cable television."
Psaki added that one of her takeaways going forward was to "cross authoritarianism and oligarchy out of every script. Nobody talks this way."
Fox News' Alexander Hall contributed to this report.
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