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Former interim chair of Democratic National Committee (DNC) Donna Brazile gave a nonsensical explanation on how the 2016 Democratic primary was not rigged during an interview of Monday, despite her previous claim that it was.
Brazile appeared MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to tout her new book, “Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House.”
NBC’s Willie Geist brought up a claim that Brazile made in a recent Politico op-ed that the 2016 Democratic primary was rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton.
Brazile wrote:
“I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clinton’s team had rigged the nomination process, as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had suggested….By September 7, the day I called Bernie, I had found my proof and it broke my heart.”
Brazile later walked back her claim that the Democratic primary was rigged.
Geist asked Brazile which claim was true: the one in her book or her more recent story.
Brazile elected to dodge Geist’s question by explaining how she attempted to spend funds to combat claims that Donald Trump made while serving as DNC Chair but was prevented.
“That’s when I found this joint fund-raising agreement. But the addendum, that disturbed me,” Brazile explained.
Brazile is referring to the joint fundraising agreement that existed between Clinton’s campaign and the DNC, which allowed the Clinton campaign to have input on how the DNC spent its funds during the 2016 presidential election.
“I went back and told Bernie I found what you wanted me to find. It’s a cancer. The process was not rigged. I had to make it clear to him, I found the cancer,” Brazile continued.
Geist asked Brazile if she regretted using the word rigged in her Politico op-ed, but again Brazile dodged the question.
Brazile and Geist proceeded to spar over whether Brazile had called the Democratic primary rigged in her Politico op-ed.
“What did you find proof of?” Geist asked Brazile.
“The cancer. The cancer was that the DNC had signed the — the staff of the DNC, not an officer, Debbie [Wasserman Schultz] was the staff, had signed a memorandum of the staff with the Clinton campaign to take over certain departments in exchange for bailing [the DNC] out,” Brazile responded.
Geist seemed notably confused by Brazile’s answer and how Brazile’s reference to “the cancer” was different from the Democratic primary being rigged.