Incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) fired a group of Democratic staffers right before Christmas.
Schumer fired almost all the staffers in the Senate Democrats’ internal video department, the Senate Democratic Media Center, to make room for a new digital operation focusing on viral social media content, Politico reported.
“On Friday, December 16, 2016, my colleagues and I in the Senate Democratic Media Center were informed by the incoming Democratic Leaders office that our services were no longer needed,” said one staffer in a goodbye email to other Democratic staffers.
Sources said that more than a half-dozen people were fired.
The media center employs eight people, according to data from LegiStorm.
The firings come as Democrats have dealt with the turmoil of being without a chairman for the Democratic National Committee and losing both the White House and the Senate majority. Democrats have been left without a leader or messenger as a result.
Schumer intends to set up a more buzzy, viral video department to get out the party’s message on social media.
He’s already started hiring new staff for the media operation and he expects to have a full bench of staffers by January.
“The mission of the revamped SDMC will be to produce more content to make content more creative and catchy, and to do so faster than we’ve been able to in the past,” a senior Democratic aide told Fox News.