Donna Brazile Plays Race Card With Bravura Against Clinton Campaign, Says She Considered Replacing Hillary With Biden

Donna Brazile at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 26, 2016. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)

Former Democratic National Committee interim chair Donna Brazile has choice words for anyone upset for her Saturday revelation that she seriously considered overturning the popular primary vote and official Democratic party nomination of Hillary Clinton for president, based on the primary votes of Democrats. 

Brazile announced on ABC 'This Week' on Sunday that her critics can "go to hell." Drawing a comparison between herself and those telling Hillary Clinton to shut up and go quietly into the night -- in a book that seems to roast Hillary Clinton alive -- Brazile has dropped the gauntlet, telling her critics, "Go to hell. I'm going to tell my story."

Stupified over Brazile's claims that Hillary Clinton created an agreement with the Democratic National Committee that was a "cancer" on the party and claimed that it caused unequal treatment for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. during the primaries, Clintonites questioned Brazile's amnesia over a similar one she executed as campaign manager for Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore in 2000. 

Tempers flared after Politico published the first excerpt from Brazile's book 'Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House." But nothing prepared rank and file Democrats for Brazile's assertion that she considered 'firing' Hillary Clinton as the Democratic party nominee after her fainting spell on Sept. 11, 2016. Hillary was nursing a case of walking pneumonia at the time. 

“The real story on Collusion is in Donna B’s new book. Crooked Hillary bought the DNC & then stole the Democratic Primary from Crazy Bernie!,” President Donald Trump tweeted on Friday.

The Washington Post first reported Brazile's assertions that she considered several potential replacements for Clinton and Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., the vice presidential nominee, and concluded Biden and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., would be the strongest combination to beat Donald Trump in November.

The Washington Post has bowed to the backlash from Clintonites and Brazile, herself, trying to clean up the mess while muttering that we can all go to hell. Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify the process that Donna Brazile considered initiating to have Hillary Clinton replaced as the Democratic presidential nominee. As interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, Brazile was not empowered to replace her unilaterally. Reactions from former Clinton campaign officials have also been added.

The most disconcerting assertions in the WaPo article focus on Brazile's fiery disagreements with Clinton staffers -- including a conference call in which the top Democratic strategist told three senior Clinton campaign officials -- Charlie Baker, Marlon Marshall and Dennis Cheng -- that they were treating her like a slave.

“I’m not Patsey the slave,” Brazile recalls telling them, a reference to the character played by Lupita Nyong’o in the film, “12 Years a Slave.” “Y’all keep whipping me and whipping me and you never give me any money or any way to do my damn job. I am not going to be your whipping girl!”

Many Clintonites have pointed out inaccuracies in Brazile's recollections, including the fact that Cheng, the campaign's national finance director, did not participate in this call. 

More than 100 former senior aides issued an open letter Saturday night reading, “We do not recognize the campaign she portrays in the book." Signers included campaign chairman John Podesta, campaign manager Robby Mook, and campaign vice-chair Huma Abedin. The letter represented the first time the Clinton campaign team had spoken collectively about the election. 

“We are pretty tired of people who were not part of our campaign telling the world what it was like to be on the inside of our campaign and how we felt about it. We loved our candidate and each other and it remains our honor to have been part of the effort to make Hillary Clinton the 45th President of the United States,” they wrote in the note that also insisted: "We do not recognize the campaign she portrays in the book."

On the allegation that sent shockwaves through Hillary supporters on Saturday afternoon, the campaign members letter wrote:

“We were shocked to learn the news that Donna Brazile actively considered overturning the will of the Democratic voters by attempting to replace Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine as the Democratic Presidential and Vice Presidential nominees,” the letter began. “It is particularly troubling and puzzling that she would seemingly buy into false Russian-fueled propaganda, spread by both the Russians and our opponent, about our candidate's health.”

Whenever Brazile got frustrated with Clinton’s aides, she writes in her book, she would remind them that the DNC charter empowered her to initiate the replacement of the nominee. If a nominee became disabled, she explains, the party chair would oversee a complicated process of filling the vacancy that would include a meeting of the full DNC. To read that this threat hung over the campaign between Brazile and Brooklyn left people incredulous. 

After Clinton’s fainting spell, some Democratic insiders were abuzz with talk of replacing her — and Brazile says she was giving it considerable thought, finally deciding on Joe Biden for president and Corey Booker for Vice President.

Current DNC chairman Tom Perez said on Sunday: "The charge that Hillary Clinton was somehow incapacitated is, quite frankly, ludicrous," Perez concluded.

All in all, Brazile's book has opened deep wounds between the Berners and Clintonites, including your writer and founder of AOC. Personally I had a glass of wine and went to bed on Saturday afternoon.