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Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Hogg on Democratic primaries: ‘There are older people who are great'
Democratic National Committee (DNC) Vice Chair David Hogg, who has come under fire recently for efforts to oust longtime officeholders in favor of younger, more progressive candidates, pushed back Sunday on suggestions that the reason he is against some established politicians is solely their age. 'There's a lot of people out there who want to make this all about age and say that we're just targeting people because they're above a certain age or something like that — that could not be further from the truth,' Hogg, 25, said during an interview on MSNBC's 'The Weekend Primetime' on Sunday. 'There are older people who are great; there are young people who suck.' 'Unfortunately, it's not like you just get above a certain age and you start being terrible. It's a lot more nuanced than that,' he added. The Hogg-led Leaders We Deserve grassroots group launched a $20 million effort in April to support primary challengers against Democrats already in Congress. 'The people that we are challenging, it's not like it's just because they're above a certain age that we're going to be challenging them,' Hogg said. 'It's about effectiveness and being able to meet this moment.' Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 Parkland, Fla., school shooting at the high school he attended, also stressed that the group is only targeting safe blue districts, and not going after vulnerable incumbents facing tough general election fights. 'It's clear right now: Far too many people feel like Democrats are failing to meet the moment,' he said. 'And I think that we need to show — especially considering the past election when we lost vote-share with nearly every single demographic — what we are doing to change our party and show them that we are offering something new. Fresh faces and new ideas.' Hogg came under fire earlier this month after he said during an appearance on HBO's 'Real Time with Bill Maher' that members afraid of losing their longtime seats need to 'get over yourself.' 'This isn't about you. This is about our country and it's about your constituents,' Hogg said. Hogg's blunt message came after Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who is 84 and has held his House seat for more than three decades, rebuffed suggestions he should retire. He noted that he and other longtime House leaders — former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and former Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), both 85 years old — had already vacated their leadership roles earlier this year to make way for a new generation. 'What do you want — me to give up my life?' Clyburn, who served as the Democratic whip, told The Wall Street Journal. Democratic pundit Bakari Sellers responded on the social platform X to a clip of Hogg's remarks, calling it 'wild' that Hogg would have the 'audacity' to tell Clyburn to get over himself. But Hogg denied on MSNBC that he was talking about the South Carolina lawmaker or his ilk. 'We're not looking to challenge people that, you know, have incredible legacies, like Congressman Clyburn, for example,' he said. 'What we're looking to do here is make sure that we're bringing in a generation of young people that is truly representative of our generation.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
19-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Hogg on Democratic primaries: ‘There are older people who are great'
Democratic National Committee (DNC) Vice Chair David Hogg, who has come under fire recently for efforts to oust longtime officeholders in favor of younger, more progressive candidates, pushed back Sunday on suggestions that he's against some established politicians just because they are old. 'There's a lot of people out there who want to make this all about age and say that we're just targeting people because they're above a certain age or something like that — that could not be further from the truth,' Hogg, 25, said during an interview on MSNBC's 'The Weekend Primetime' on Sunday. 'There are older people who are great; there are young people who suck.' 'Unfortunately, it's not like you just get above a certain age and you start being terrible. It's a lot more nuanced than that,' he added. The Hogg-led Leaders We Deserve grassroots group launched a $20 million effort in April to support primary challengers against Democrats already in Congress. 'The people that we are challenging, it's not like it's just because they're above a certain age that we're going to be challenging them,' Hogg said. 'It's about effectiveness and being able to meet this moment.' Hogg, a student survivor of the 2018 Parkland, Fla., school shooting, also stressed that the group is only targeting safe blue districts, and not going after vulnerable incumbents facing tough general election fights. 'It's clear right now, far too many people feel like Democrats are failing to meet the moment,' he said. 'And I think that we need to show, especially considering the past election when we lost vote-share with nearly every single demographic, what we are doing to change our party and show them that we are offering something new, fresh faces and new ideas.' Hogg came under fire earlier this month after he said during an appearance on HBO's 'Real Time with Bill Maher' that members afraid of losing their longtime seats need to 'get over yourself.' 'This isn't about you, this is about our country and it's about your constituents,' Hogg said. Hogg's blunt message came after Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), who is 84 and has held his House seat for more than three decades, rebuffed suggestions he should retire. He noted that he and other long-time House leaders — former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and former Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) — had already vacated their leadership roles earlier this year to make way for a new generation. 'What do you want — me to give up my life?' Clyburn, who served as the Democratic whip, told The Wall Street Journal. Democratic pundit Bakari Sellers responded on the social media platform X to a clip of Hogg's remarks, calling it 'wild' that Hogg would have the 'audacity' to tell Clyburn to get over himself. But Hogg denied on MSNBC that he was talking about the South Carolina lawmaker or his ilk. 'We're not looking to challenge people that, you know, have incredible legacies, like Congressman Clyburn, for example,' he said. 'What we're looking to do here is make sure that we're bringing in a generation of young people that is truly representative of our generation.'
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
ICE officials ‘un-American' for attempts to ‘intimidate' members of Congress, lawmaker says
Three House Democrats accused officials at Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and the broader Trump administration of being 'un-American' on Sunday after the arrest of Newark's mayor at an ICE facility. Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rob Menendez, and LaMonica McIver appeared on CNN's State of the Union for a joint interview on Sunday. The trio were threatened with arrest by a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson over the weekend after conducting an oversight visit to an ICE facility on Friday — a visit explicitly allowed by the legislation directing funding for those facilities. They told CNN's Dana Bash that Trump administration officials were attempting to 'intimidate' members of Congress and the White House's critics with threats of arrest and imprisonment. Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, was arrested after attempting to enter the facility on Friday. 'Someone on the phone above the leaders of ICE, who were with us at that facility, instructed them to go out of the facility, go to the private property and lock the mayor of the largest city in the state of New Jersey up. That's absurd. That's un-American,' said Watson Coleman. She added: 'That's determination to intimidate people in this country.' Menendez, who tweeted out the clause of legislation defining the legality of congressional oversight visits to ICE detention facilities, told MSNBC on Saturday that 'no one should feel safe' as the second Trump administration seeks to use law enforcement to 'intimidate' critics. 'This is a pattern,' said Menendez on MSNBC's The Weekend Primetime. 'It's judges — federal judges who they disagree with their decision. It's mayors, it's now members of Congress.' Baraka was interviewed Sunday on MSNBC's The Weekend. 'This is like moving us slowly towards an authoritarian kind of government here, where they are telling people they can't come to a public place, they can't go onto a facility to even get a tour. We weren't protesting. Nobody barged in. We were there peacefully,' said the mayor. 'I was there for over an hour before they decided to escalate it.' Menendez added on CNN: "They had over 20 armed ICE [Homeland Security Investigations] officers, they were heavily armed, their faces were covered, and they wearing no identification. So this is who they chose to have come engage with the mayor of Newark and three elected members of the House of Representatives." On Saturday, more than 100 miles away in Albany, New York, Democratic state lawmakers and activists were blocked by police officers as they attempted to confront the White House's deportation czar, Tom Homan, during his visit to the state capitol. Among them was Zohran Mamdani, estimated in most polls to be trailing Andrew Cuomo as the disgraced former governor's main competitor in the New York City mayoral race. The three lawmakers who visited the ICE facility on Friday were threatened with arrest, with McIver being accused of 'body-slamming' an officer. Video footage released by ICE does not show this, and instead shows McIver being jostled repeatedly, and attempting to push her way through a scrum of officers attempting to block her path. During the scuffle, McIver says she was shoved by an agent before she made contact with other officers. Notably, as McIver said Friday, the scuffle occurred after McIver and the two other lawmakers first entered the facility. 'This scuffle, during which an ICE agent physically shoved me, occurred AFTER we had entered the Delaney Hall premises. We entered the facility, came BACK OUT to speak to the Mayor, and then ICE agents began shoving us.' Watson Coleman confirmed during her interview Sunday that the clash with ICE officers occurred after the arrest of the mayor was ordered. The lawmakers confirmed that ICE agents proceeded to allow a tour of the facility after the scuffle and arrest of the mayor. 'After Mayor Baraka was arrested yesterday, DHS officials let us conduct our tour as is required by law. So despite the Admin's attempts to spin this, they know we had every right to be there and enter the facility. If you ignore the spin, you'll see there is only one accurate narrative - ours,' said Menendez on Twitter. On Saturday, a DHS spokeswoman warned: 'There will be more arrests coming.' The Trump administration has not identified what charges would potentially be brought against McIver or others for the confrontation on Friday and doing so would provoke a confrontation with Democratic leadership the likes of which the White House has not yet seen. The situation played out this weekend as the administration has taken successive defeats in the court system and on Friday saw the ordered release of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University student, after weeks of legal battles over her detention and possible deportation. A judge in the case admonished the administration's focus on protected First Amendment activities for the revocation of her visa. White House officials have not yet openly defied the courts but continue to ignore an order requiring them to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man deported to El Salvador despite a judge ruling that he could not be sent there. U.S. officials maintain that Abrego Garcia is in Salvadoran custody and therefore out of the administration's hands. Federal agents arrested a federal judge in Wisconsin last month and accused her of refusing to allow agents to detain a man outside of her courtroom; her arrest has been widely condemned by legal experts. Immigration raids continue across the United States as the Trump administration pushes towards a target of deporting 1 million people this year. Raids were reported in Washington DC, Tennessee, and California over the past week.
