Malcolm Kenyatta pushes back against claims made by David Hogg
Pennsylvania State Rep. and DNC Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta is pushing back against claims made by David Hogg, who is also a DNC vice chair.
"David has a debate with reality and the facts, and so that's something he has to work through," Kenyatta told KDKA.
The intraparty drama has to do with a vote a DNC committee recently took. They made a recommendation that there should be a new DNC vice chair election to be held due to a procedural error made during the last vote. If a new vote is taken and voters make different choices, either Hogg or Kenyatta could lose their positions as DNC vice chairs.
Hogg, who gained national prominence for his gun control activism after he survived the Parkland school shooting in 2018, has argued the DNC is trying to oust him, saying it is "impossible to ignore the broader context of my work to reform the party which loomed large over this vote."
Hogg has worked to make reforms to the party, and has drawn criticism for efforts to primary Democrats.
Kenyatta told KDKA that while he's frustrated there will have to be another vote, he believes Hogg is wrong, pointing to the procedural issues with the vote.
"These were not about my thoughts," Kenyatta said. "This is about the facts. So, you know, David doesn't have a debate with me, and I don't have a debate with David."
Kenyatta said the drama within the party is distracting from issues the Democratic Party is trying to tackle, like making life better for Americans.
"I want to be clear," Kenyatta said. "David is not a victim. Malcolm Kenyatta is not a victim. The only victim that we're not talking about because we're talking about this are the 14 million Americans that could lose their health care. People across this country are victims to the higher costs that are coming as a result of Donald Trump and Republican policies."
The full DNC voting body still has to vote on the recommendation the committee made, Kenyatta said.
"This challenge was filed in February after the election, and the reason it has taken so long is because in the Democratic Party, we actually do believe in due process," Kenyatta said.
He pointed out that in the original vote, he had many more votes than he necessarily needed to become a vice chair in the first place.
"When procedural issues like this happen, we all have a right to be frustrated," Kenyatta said. "We don't have a right to just create our own facts. We just don't."
