Ex-DNC chair says Biden circle rejected his ideas to strengthen Democratic brand

Former Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Jaime Harrison said Wednesday that members of former President Joe Biden’s inner circle dismissed Harrison’s ideas for a Democratic brand study during a podcast interview.

“Now, some of the people in his universe at the White House did not always make it easy in terms of doing the things that I thought we should have been doing in order to strengthen the party, to rebuild the party’s brand, to really engage in the social media aspect,” Harrison told Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom during his podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom.”

Harrison called Biden one of the most “pro-party” presidents the Democratic Party has ever had and credited him for helping to invest in state parties across the country. 

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“I wanted to create a YouTube channel that I call ‘DTV’ that would have been focused on the Democratic Party and having us tell our own story, highlighting our successes, getting different people that showcase the diversity of the party out there on social media, where people are getting their information from. But I was told, ‘That’s not a big priority right now,'” he continued.

Harrison explained he wanted to do a brand study for the Democratic Party because he felt it was broken. He said he hoped to get people from nonprofit and corporate spaces to look at the Democratic Party as a political brand. 

“I was told, ‘No, we’re not going to spend time on that.’ So, it wasn’t from the president. It’s some of the people, sometimes in the president’s bubble, who think they know better but, in essence, probably should just listen to some of us that are on the ground. But I’ll leave that for another day,” Harrison claimed.  

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Former President Joe Biden talks to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., Sept. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

The former DNC chair decided not to seek re-election this year. Ken Martin, former chair of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, was elected as the new DNC chair in February.

Harrison argued that the Democratic Party should have stood by Biden in an interview with The Associated Press after former Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss to President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. Harris replaced Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket after he exited the race.

After the interview was released in January, Harrison objected to a headline that said, “The DNC’s outgoing chair says Democrats should have stuck with Joe Biden in 2024.”

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Jaime Harrison, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, speaks onstage during the first day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago Aug. 19, 2024. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

“This headline isn’t right. Stuck ‘by’ and stuck ‘with’ are two different things,” he wrote on X. “Yes, I believed we should have stuck by and defended President Joe Biden when he was our nominee, and at the same time when Joe Biden stepped down I was damn proud to fight for Vice President Harris to be our next POTUS.”

Biden’s office and the DNC did not immediately return a request for comment. 

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