Donna Brazile Walks Back Claim She Faced Sexism from Clinton Campaign

During an interview on Fox News on Wednesday, former Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile, facing heavy Democratic fire, walked back her claim in her new book Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House, that she faced sexism from the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Brazile, in a chapter called “Gentlemen, Let’s Put Our Dicks on the Table,” recalls a conference call with Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook and his all-male team about her hiring an assistant:

I have worked with men all my life in politics and I can sense when they get to this part about not being able to deal with a woman. This was not a racial thing. This was a gender thing. Every time you mention that they are trying to shut you down because you are a woman, all these guys are like, “No, no, no.” I would not say that, and I would not act like someone who was asking for permission.

…

“You know, this does not feel like a negotiation to me,” I said. “This feels like power and control. Gentlemen, let’s just put our dicks out on the table and see who’s got the bigger one, because I know mine is bigger than all of yours.”

However, during her interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson Wednesday evening, Brazile blamed it mostly on a “generational” thing.

Carlson asked, “So my question is, did — you are saying you were the victim of sexism from the management of the Hillary Clinton campaign. What was their response when you said, ‘Look, don’t treat me differently because I’m a woman’?”

Brazile responded, “Well, you know, I may have — I may have also stated in the book, I think I did in three or four chapters, that it was also generational.”

“Remember, I come from the old school. I come from the school when you have a three by five index card. I come from the school, Tucker, that you actually knock on doors, you talk to people, you try to get their support, and then you try to get them out on Election Day,” she continued.

“Robby comes from a school that is a lot different than the school I came from. They do algorithms. They do data modeling. And what I would go come back to…”

When Carlson pressed her again on her claim of sexism, noting that it was “ironic” coming from a campaign that wanted to break glass ceilings for women, Brazile acknowledged that Mook’s attitude was “condescending and dismissive” but went back to talking about their differences in opinions on how to campaign.

The walking back of one of her most controversial claims in the book comes after members of the Clinton campaign have slammed her as opportunistic, dishonest, and a Russian propaganda shill.

Brazile’s book, released on Tuesday, revealed a deal between the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee that would allow Clinton to control the party’s finances, strategy, money raised, and who would be the party communications director and have the final say on other staff.