Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Bloomberg ‘s “With All Due Respect,” co-host John Heilemann said the Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s claim she consulted with her vice chairs while deciding the number of DNC sanctioned debates is not true.
Wasserman Schultz has been in a public back and forth with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) about whether she was dis-invited to the first Democratic debate last night for speaking out about the low number of debates scheduled.
Wasserman Schultz added to the controversy by claiming the decision was reached through discussions with her vice chairs, a position which Gabbard holds. Gabbard said that claim was also false.
This morning after looking into the situation, Heilemann said, “Tulsi Gabbard is telling the truth in both instances as far as I can tell. The difference between what the Chairwoman, Wasserman Schultz is saying and what Gabbard is saying about the dis-invitation is semantics. She called up and said if Gabbard wants to keep talking about there needing to be more debates, maybe she should reconsider going to the debate in Las Vegas.”
Host Joe Scarborough asked, “Hold on a second, on the more important issue, on whether Debbie called the other vice chairmen as she told the media she did. Did she do that?”
Heilemann said, “She did not. She did not. I have not been able to find — I’ve done a lot of reporting on this in the last 48 hours. I could not find a vice-chair consulted in advance by Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Everybody I have talked to, about a dozen people with knowledge of how the decision was made, all said she made the decision unilaterally and the vice chairs learned about it via press release.”
In the second clip from CNN Wasserman Schultz again this morning claimed she spoke with her vice chairs while making the decision to limit the Democratic primary debates to six.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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