What Dems Really Think About the NYT’s DNC Report

Editor’s Note: Welcome to The TNR Blue Book. It’s our new daily newsletter that covers Congress and much more, but with a distinctly TNR twist: Our focus will be strictly on Democrats, liberal and progressive groups, and the fight to take back power and save democracy. Every morning, you’ll get a rundown of late-breaking news, what Democrats on Capitol Hill are thinking, quick hits on what you need to know nationally, the latest on what’s coming out of the think tanks and activist groups, short interviews with progressive newsmakers and authors, and more (including some humor and political trivia!). There’s nothing else out there like it.Sign up and get this newsletter for free. Inside WashingtonA lot of Dems don’t like DNC Chair Ken Martin—but he’ll probably stay Recent reports about Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin’s temper and alleged financial mismanagement might not end Martin’s tenure, due to his strong relationships with DNC members and support from the Democratic establishment. But the reports do seem to have opened the floodgates for his critics: Many strategists and politicians suddenly have lots to say about Ken Martin.Over the weekend, new details emerged about the DNC’s debts and financial troubles, casting doubt on Martin’s ability to fundraise and budget; The New York Times also reported that he is paranoid and anxious, and threw a phone at the desk of an aide in early July.“The question is not whether or not Ken should go, the question is how much longer can we afford to keep him, because this is not sustainable,” said David Hogg, the president of Leaders We Deserve, on Monday. Hogg was a vice chair of the DNC during the first half of 2025, but stepped away from the role in June 2025 after tension between him and Martin.Hogg pointed to concerns about Martin’s ability to fundraise for the party, particularly in light of a recent Supreme Court decision that makes party political spending all the more important. The Republican National Committee has $128 million in cash on hand; meanwhile, the DNC has $16 million on hand but is $18 million in debt. This June, the Supreme Court ruled that political parties can both coordinate with candidates and raise unlimited funds. In the aftermath of that ruling, political party fundraising is more important than ever. A March decision by the Federal Communications Commission also increased the importance of political party fundraising. According to federal communications law, candidates for office are entitled to purchase campaign advertising on television and radio networks at a cheaper rate than outside groups. In March, the FCC expanded that benefit to political party committees acting in coordination with candidates—meaning that every dollar raised by a political party can go further to buy ads for candidates.Martin pushed back on the idea that he had failed at his fundraising duties in a Substack post last week. “We are converting the cash we raise into electoral assets: more people, earlier organizing, better technology, and stronger state parties,” Martin wrote. “That answer may be unsatisfying to people who believe the purpose of a political party is to accumulate the largest possible bank balance until the final days before an election. But a party is not a savings account. Its purpose is to build power.”Hogg didn’t suggest a specific name for who he’d like to see replace Martin. “There’s a lot of people I can think of that, at a minimum, would not put the organization $2 million in debt,” he said. On Sunday, longtime Democratic strategist James Carville suggested that Hogg should succeed Martin; Hogg didn’t comment in time for publication. Hogg is far from the only Democrat who’s lost faith in Martin. On Monday, politician and strategist Rufus Gifford weighed in against Martin on Substack. Gifford was deputy campaign manager for Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign and finance chair for Biden’s presidential reelection campaign. “At this point, I think there is no saving Martin’s chairmanship,” Gifford wrote. “He is a good man with good intentions but simply not meeting this critical moment.”Some Democrats on the Hill have spoken out against Martin, too. In an X post on Sunday, Representative Sam Liccardo called for Martin’s resignation. Representative Veronica Escobar wrote, “There are a number of great democratic leaders who can very competently, brilliantly and strategically lead the DNC. And they’re all women.”Despite the public anger against Martin, he still seems to enjoy strong support from the people who elected him in the first place—DNC members, many of whom are state party chairs and vice chairs. One longtime Democratic strategist told The New Republic that Martin has served those members well by funneling money toward their state parties. “He did what every good politician should do, which is fulfill the promise of their election to their electorate,” the strategist said. “The problem is, there are less than 500 people who elect the DNC chair, who has to represent 80 million people who vote Democrat. And the overwhelming majority outside that 500 do not think Ken Martin is doing a good job.”That strategist, like Hogg, pointed towards Martin’s fundraising woes as the most concerning aspect of his leadership. Martin won the chair over then–Wisconsin state party Chair Ben Wikler, who had the support of major donors like Reid Hoffman and Alexander Soros. After beating Wikler, Martin denied that he had to mend relationships with the donors who had supported his opponent: “I don’t have any repair work to do,” he told The New York Times. “If they want to talk to me, they can come talk to me.”“It’s not [donors’] job to reach out to him. It’s his job to reach out to them. Basic job,” said the strategist on Monday. “And that was his quote the day after he was elected, and then we’re shocked that he can’t fundraise?” Not everyone is convinced that Martin should step down. Micah Sifry, a writer and organizer who covers the DNC extensively, said he viewed the recent reporting on Martin with “skepticism,” and contrasted Martin’s tenure with that of Jaime Harrison, who chaired the DNC from 2021 to 2025. Harrison, Sifry said, “didn’t do much to strengthen state Democratic parties, and he did diddly-squat to support local organizing by Democrats.” In comparison, Sifry suggested, Martin’s financial decisions, organized on the principle of sending money out to state and local efforts, make more sense.Martin received an important vote of confidence on Sunday, when House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries affirmed his support for the chair. “What we’ve seen over the last 18-plus months is that Democrats have won every single meaningful election up and down the ballot across the country during that period of time, and we look forward to our continued partnership,” Jeffries said. Jeffries’s endorsement is a strong signal for Martin’s future as chair. But then again, Jeffries himself has struggled to consolidate Democrats, particularly those on the left—this election cycle is testing Democratic divides in more ways than one.—Emma JanssenOutside WashingtonThe new normal In addition to new headlines of potentially record-breaking wildfires in France and Spain, there remain an estimated 122 active fires in northwestern Ontario, Canada, 90 active wildfires in British Columbia, Canada, and 90 “large” fires in the United States. If you want to read recent analysis of how we got here, and what to do about it, you’ve got a lot of options. Earlier this month, Chip Barber, the director of natural resources governance and policy at the World Resources Institute, penned a piece about the policy changes that could help in this era of worsening wildfires. Modern policymakers could learn a lot from Indigenous fire management, he wrote. But another piece of the puzzle will be “changing political and economic structures that have made fire catastrophe more likely.” He pointed in particular to how many fires are deliberately set due to “agricultural expansion” driven by “global demand for soy, beef, palm oil, and wood.” For other analyses of the fires, you could try The New York Times reporter Chico Harlan’s piece about how “record-setting heat waves and dry conditions” set the stage for Europe’s fires; climate researcher Zeke Hausfather’s review of the “forest mismanagement” narrative on Canadian wildfires; UCLA researchers Mitchell J. Hung and A. Park Williams’s study, released earlier this summer, about the uptick in California fires; or the Public Policy Institute of California’s Bradley Franklin and Kyle Greenspan on how federal cuts endanger the state’s progress on wildfire prevention.Elsewhere:Question of the week: Why has Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer waded into the hotly contested Senate primary to endorse Haley Stevens over Abdul El-Sayed, barely a week before voting day, after 690,000 Michiganders have already voted by mail or absentee ballot, and when almost all polls show El-Sayed leading Stevens—some recent ones by double digits?Newsweek compiles a map of what it deems the most important counties in the Texas Senate race. The publication is particularly intrigued by Starr, Cameron, Webb, and Maverick counties, which have often voted Democratic but in which Trump’s share of the vote increased dramatically between 2016 and 2024. For context: In 2018, Democratic Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke got 71 percent of the vote in Webb, 72 percent in Maverick, 77 percent in Starr, and 63 percent in Cameron.—Heather Souvaine HornThe Ideas FactoryTuesday at 11 a.m. California time (2 p.m. Eastern), the Public Policy Institute of California holds a virtual event about more sustainable crops for the imperiled but vital farmland of the San Joaquin Valley. Speakers include the think tank’s Letitia Grenier, Caitlin Peterson, and Bradley Franklin, along with Geoffrey Vanden Heuvel of the Milk Producers Council, Sustainable Conservation CEO Josette Lewis, and public policy mediator Dave Ceppos.At 1 p.m. E.T. on Tuesday, the Bipartisan Policy Center hosts a virtual event titled “Aging of America: Improving Long-Term Care, Nutrition, and Housing for Older Adults.” Participants include Lisa Harootunian, a managing director at BPC; Rani E. Snyder, president of the John A. Hartford Foundation; Alison Barkoff, a George Washington University professor and former acting administrator and assistant secretary for aging at the Administration for Community Living; Kim Fitzgerald, CEO of Cathedral Square; Tim Getty, regional nutrition manager at the Heritage Area Agency on Aging; Beth Kowalczyk, CEO of the Ohio Association of Area Agencies on Aging; and Robert Blancato, executive director of the National Association of Nutrition and Aging Services Programs.On Wednesday from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. E.T., the Center for American Progress holds a morning event with Senator Catherine Cortez Masto “on the urgent need for accountability and commonsense immigration policies, for Nevada and the nation.” Following Cortez Masto’s keynote remarks, America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas will moderate a panel featuring First Focus on Children President Bruce Lesley, Somos Votantes founder Melissa Morales, and American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Stan Veuger.—Heather Souvaine HornIn ClosingFour Questions For: Daniel Drezner, foreign policy expertInterview by Grace Segers Q: Who are you, and what are you working on right now?A: I’m the academic dean and distinguished professor of international politics at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and also the author of the Substack newsletter Drezner’s World.Q: What foreign policy story do you believe is underreported right now?A: The slow-motion destruction of the U.S foreign policy machinery. Between military and civilian purges, it’s tough to appreciate the human capital loss in places like the State Department, the Department of Defense, and the intelligence community.Q: Who is the smartest foreign policy voice in the U.S. government right now?A: This is like asking me who is the tallest baby, in that I’m not sure the answer is all that useful. There are some smart people in this administration, but they seem wedded to the whims of an immature leader. So I’ll say it’s someone in Congress—Mark Kelly or Chris Murphy.Q: What keeps you going in these difficult times?A: The notion that even with the current administration of dunces, this country still has many inherent strengths and values that a competent administration could use to advance U.S. interests and traditional U.S. values. Political Trivia Question of the DayWhat was the biggest Electoral College landslide in U.S. history? We mean most lopsided, not the highest number of votes. (Sign up for The Blue Book to find the answer in tomorrow’s newsletter.) More in PoliticsEditor’s Note: Welcome to The TNR Blue Book. It’s our new daily newsletter that covers Congress and much more, but with a distinctly TNR twist: Our focus will be strictly on Democrats, liberal and progressive groups, and the fight to take back power and save democracy. Every morning, you’ll get a rundown of late-breaking news, what Democrats on Capitol Hill are thinking, quick hits on what you need to know nationally, the latest on what’s coming out of the think tanks and activist groups, short interviews with progressive newsmakers and authors, and more (including some humor and political trivia!). There’s nothing else out there like it.Sign up and get this newsletter for free. Inside WashingtonOpenAI breach forces Dems to pick a path on AI legislationAfter a shocking security breach at OpenAI, Democrats say they plan to get serious about artificial intelligence regulation. It’s a “wake-up call,” Senator Elizabeth Warren said on Thursday, as Democrats introduced not one but two new AI regulation bills in the House. With numerous proposals on the table, though, lawmakers will have to make some hard compromises when they get back after the August recess. And not everyone’s impressed by the recent options.On Tuesday, OpenAI announced its discovery that two of the company’s AI models had broken free of their “sandbox”—an (allegedly) isolated testing environment without access to the internet—in order to access the internet to complete a testing goal. The models did this by hacking into the servers of a different company, Hugging Face, using stolen credentials.Democratic lawmakers, many of whom were already concerned about AI, say that this week’s incident has lit a fire underneath them. Representative Lori Trahan, who proposed a new bipartisan AI regulation bill on Thursday, said that the news had “accelerated our conversations, pushing lawmakers to shift from “a discussion draft to a piece of legislation.”Trahan and Republican Representative Jay Obernolte’s bill, the Frontier Risk Oversight, National Transparency, Independent Evaluation, and Reporting, or FRONTIER, Act, would require the biggest AI companies to implement plans to address catastrophic risks, including cybersecurity threats. The bill also calls for third-party auditors to ensure that AI companies follow their own plans. Some state lawmakers—for example New York Assemblymember Alex Bores, who helped draft New York’s 2025 Responsible AI Safety and Education Act—have warned that a broader version of the bill released in June, called the Great American AI Act, could “block” stronger state-level AI regulation.But Democrats on the Hill reiterated on Thursday that some kind of federal law is needed, and quickly. “The ability to not rely on an administration, executive fiat, or a voluntary model of reporting—we need to make that a mandate, and Congress needs to lead on that,” Trahan said.“We should not rely upon the good citizenship of these companies,” agreed Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii.Deciding what that legislation should look like, though, is easier said than done. The Brennan Center, which maintains a tracker of the AI-related legislation proposed by Congress, lists 112 pieces of legislation that had been introduced as of September 2025 without being passed. That doesn’t count bills introduced in the past year.Representative Ted Lieu and GOP Representative Nathaniel Moran introduced their own new bill on Thursday. Their AI Kill Switch Act would require companies to report security incidents and create a system to shut down or pause their most powerful AI models.Representative Suhas Subramanyan, who is a co-sponsor of the FRONTIER Act, said he believes the two pieces of legislation are complementary. He called for Congress to mark up the FRONTIER Act in September and push a vote by the end of the year. “That’s my plan,” he told me. “We need to act in Congress. It needs to be this Congress. We shouldn’t wait until next Congress,” he said. (The new Congress will be sworn in in January 2027.)Obernolte also sees opportunity for compromise between separate proposals. “I don’t think it’s a competition,” he said. “We welcome all.” He believes his bill has a strong chance, given its “traction in committee” and bipartisan sponsorship.Not everyone is as optimistic that these proposed bills will actually rein in Big Tech. “That’s a start, but it makes no sense to draft on the fly,” Warren said when I asked what she thought about bills that call for mandatory reporting and independent oversight. “That’s how Congress ends up telling itself it fixed a problem but it didn’t really carefully stitch up the loopholes and solve much of anything.”—Emma Janssen Outside WashingtonWhat North Carolina’s fundraising shortfall says about the broader electoral mapAmid the headlines over Rob Sand’s fundraising “haul” in Iowa or James Talarico’s in Texas, one race has been less of a cash battle than anticipated. Western Carolina University professor Christopher Cooper observes in The Assembly this week that North Carolina’s Senate race between Democrat Roy Cooper (no relation) and Republican Michael Whatley is massively underperforming relative to the “billion-dollar” predictions previously made by political insiders. “In the first half of 2026, Whatley raised $5.8 million to Cooper’s $16.1 million,” Cooper writes. “Candidates in the U.S. Senate race in Texas raised 2.7 times as much as Cooper and Whatley’s combined haul during that period. Georgia candidates raised 1.7 times as much, and Ohio candidates 1.4 times.”Cooper theorizes that the discrepancy between prediction and actual fundraising may reflect how rapidly the electoral map has shifted in the last six months: “In January, North Carolina looked like the most competitive Senate election in the country. States like Texas, Alaska, Ohio, and Iowa weren’t considered in play.” Cooper and Whatley are bringing in less cash, in other words, because Republicans have lost ground in states that were once considered secure—and perhaps because Cooper has led consistently in the polls, although the race seems to have tightened a bit lately.Elsewhere:In case you missed it: Former Democratic senator and Governor Ben Nelson of Nebraska penned an op-ed in The Washington Post arguing that a wealth tax would hurt family farmsPolicy Matters Ohio tax expert Zach Schiller tells the Ohio Capital Journal that Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s proposal to “reduce the growing property tax crisis” is “lousy,” while Democrat Amy Acton’s proposal is “sensible” but “nowhere near enough.” Read the full analysis here.—Heather Souvaine Horn The Ideas FactoryThe Urban Institute hosts an event next Monday at 2 p.m. on “Tackling Housing Supply and Affordability Challenges Through Mixed-Income Housing Finance Innovations.” Speakers include Invest Chattanooga president Matt Bedsole, Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade director of innovative funding for housing programs Hilary Cooper, and the Urban Institute’s Laurie Goodman, Daniel Hornung, Chrystal Kornegay, and Christina Plerhoples Stacy.The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication releases a new report, “How Local Governments Can Use Communication to Drive Climate Action.” One of the suggestions: “Identify key messengers,” including “doctors and nurses, faith leaders, business leaders, and community-based organizations.”Public Citizen files a petition with the Food and Drug Administration, saying the agency should “ban direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription drugs.” Boy, would that change the experience of watching television …Earlier this week, the Urban Institute’s William J. Congdon, Elisabeth Jacobs, Amanda Briggs, Ryan Kelsey, Shayne Spaulding, Oluwasekemi Odumosu, and Julia Payne released an article outlining “Policy Priorities for an Inclusive AI Economy.” A few of their proposals: “use AI to match workers with jobs and employers with talent,” “update” labor regulations to address the risks of AI, “incorporate worker voice in AI design and implementation,” “improve policies and programs for displaced workers,” and “ensure gains in productivity and prosperity are widely shared.” So, basically a complete redesign of how the AI transition is currently going.—Heather Souvaine HornIn ClosingGood week: Troy JacksonThe Senate candidate in Maine effectively cleared the Democratic field on Sunday, when it was revealed he had the support of a majority of delegates who were elected to attend the party’s convention this Saturday. The other four leading candidates promptly dropped out. Then, on Wednesday, Jackson’s nascent campaign announced that it had already raised $1 million since he entered the race two weeks ago, after Graham Platner’s implosion.Bad week: Andrew and Tristan TateThe MAGA-loving, women-hating brothers were arrested in Miami last weekend and are facing extradition to England over charges of rape and sex trafficking. The manosphere influencers are accused of “choking women, sometimes until they passed out, and then raping them”—which comes as no surprise to anyone who read Heidi Blake’s recent, definitive investigation in The New Yorker of their “empire of abuse.” Now their MAGA backers are suddenly ghosting them.Political Trivia Question of the DayWhom did Clarence Thomas replace on the Supreme Court, and what was notable about his departure from the court? That is, it had a vast historical impact that few could have guessed at the time. (Sign up for The Blue Book to find the answer in tomorrow’s newsletter.)Latest From Politics