‘Mistakes Were Made’: Dem Senator Explains Why He Thinks His Party Got Their ‘A*ses Kicked’

Democratic Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz detailed on a podcast Wednesday how he believes that since 2020 the Democratic Party’s rhetoric has led them to get their “asses kicked” in November, losing the House, the Senate, and the White House.

Following President-elect Trump’s win in November, Democrats began to question how their party lost so severely to Republicans, with some pundits suggesting the party had lost touch with their voters. On “The Bulwark,” Schatz said that while he didn’t want to blame the party for “everything” wrong, he began to acknowledge their loss.

“I don’t want to get into blaming 🇺🇸US for everything that has gone wrong, but I do think we have to do some soul searching about right or wrong, fair or unfair, why we just got our asses kicked. I know — ” Schatz said.

Host Sam Stein then joined in to question the senator’s statement, noting how the party and pundits have been debating whether Democrats truly had a “very bad defeat.”

“I mean, I’m in the Senate because of 1,782 votes, right? Maggie Hassan is in the Senate because of, I think, around 1,000 … But I mean, I don’t know if we got our asses kicked, but they certainly won the trifecta,” Schatz said. “But let me take you through what I think happened for at least some people.”

“When COVID came along, the government, institutions, corporations, politicians told everybody they were going to die now. And that was a real risk and many people did die. So I’m not trying to crap all over, I thought, what was a pretty robust COVID response.We supported people’s income. We got the vaccines deployed. We came through a pandemic,” Schatz added.