Former DNC Chair Ridicules Independents — Calls Them a 'Schtick'

Paul Rieckhoff faces off with former DNC chair Jaime Harrison on MS NOW's The Moment with Katy Tur, in a heated debate over the future of the Democratic Party — sparked by the collapse of the party's Maine Senate candidate and the two-week scramble to find a replacement to take on Susan Collins.

Paul argues the episode is a symptom of a deeper failure: a party that keeps losing, run by a generation of "establishment leaders and grifters" who should face a real reckoning. "Most of the Democratic Party should be fired," he says (starting at 14:03), making the case for a new generation of competent, compelling candidates — and for independents as part of the answer.

He points to genuine outsiders like Montana's Seth Bodner, running as an independent, and argues a candidate free of establishment baggage can win in places like Maine and Nebraska, where the progressive playbook that works in New York, LA, and Seattle doesn't.