The Democratic National Committee is running on fumes, and chairman Ken Martin is headed for a full-blown mental breakdown, according to a pair of blistering reports.
A New York Times report published Sunday revealed that the committee is $2 million in the hole and begging vendors to sit on their invoices until after the midterms.
The DNC quietly put the Southeast Washington building up as collateral last year to land a $15 million line of credit and bankroll off-year races, according to DC deed records not previously reported, according to NOTUS. The party has pawned the property, which it only partially owns, in past cycles. But going back to the well ahead of 2026 for the biggest off-year loan in committee history set off alarms among members who saw it as one more flashing red light.
"Ken gaslighting us about the DNC's finances and not being transparent about the financial situation makes us doubt if he can oversee the DNC during the most important primary of our lifetime," an unnamed DNC member told NOTUS.
The Republican National Committee is sitting on $128.5 million, and President Trump's main super PAC, MAGA Inc., closed out June with roughly $400 million in the bank.
The DNC has downplayed the alarm. Roger Lau, the committee's executive director, told the Times that the request for vendors to hold their invoices was "nothing more than standard negotiations with vendors over contracts and payment processes."
Meanwhile, the pressure mounting on Martin is showing, according to the Times:
In a pique of frustration in early July, he threw his phone at the desk of a junior aide while upbraiding the person. The phone-tossing incident resulted in a formal complaint to the D.N.C.'s human resources department.
The fallout from the phone-throwing episode was described by half a dozen people familiar with the incident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal party matters. None of them witnessed the encounter, and there was some dispute over how aggressively the phone was tossed. Mr. Martin was said to have thrown the phone at the desk, rather than at the aide.
Unsurprisingly, the DNC refused to comment on the incident.
To make matters worse, Martin has reportedly developed a "growing sense of paranoia" about a possible push to dump him and is "paralyzed by the idea of leaks."
"It pisses me off when I see leaks out of this building," Martin lamented during a meeting in May. "No more of that shit. No more."
"My success is your success," he added. "So the weaker I am, the weaker all of you are."