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# Former DNC Chair Ridicules Independents — Calls Them a 'Schtick'
- URL: https://ivn.us/podcasts/former-dnc-chair-ridicules-independents-calls-them-a-schtick/
- Published: 2026-07-10T18:06:04.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-10T22:05:36.000Z
- Description: In wake of Graham Platner's exit in Maine, former DNC Chair Jaime Harrison and Paul Rieckhoff get in a heated debate over the future of the Democratic Party, which Rieckhoff argues is run by a generation of "establishment leaders and grifters."
- Author: Righteous Media
- Tags: Independent Americans, Independent Voters, Podcast

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.