I Told You Months Ago DNC Chair Ken Martin Was Full of BS: The “Distraction” Was the Cover Story

The Real Scandal Was Never the Report…

I Told You Months Ago DNC Chair Ken Martin Was Full of BS: The “Distraction” Was the Cover Story

The Real Scandal Was Never the Report…

It Was the Panic Around Releasing It

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #903: Friday, May 22nd, 2026

There’s a certain kind of vindication that feels less like victory… and more like watching a slow-motion car wreck you warned everyone about months ago.

You don’t celebrate being right.

You just stare at the smoking crater and think:

“Of course that’s how this ended.”

That’s exactly what happened Thursday when DNC Chair Ken Martin finally dumped the Democratic Party’s long-delayed 2024 autopsy onto the public… while simultaneously trying to distance himself from the very report he commissioned.

And if you read carefully…

He practically confessed the whole thing.

Not directly, of course.

Politicians almost never do.

Instead, they leak the truth through behavior.

Through timing.

Through contradictions.

Through panic.

And this episode reeks of all four.

First Came the Burial…

Then Came the Excuse

Remember the original justification for suppressing the report?

Martin said releasing it would be a “distraction.”

A distraction.

Think about that for a moment.

A political party loses the presidency.

Loses the Senate.

Loses credibility.

Loses public confidence.

Then commissions a postmortem to figure out what happened…

…and suddenly decides the findings are too distracting to release?

Come on.

That explanation was insulting on its face.

Political organizations do not bury autopsies because they fear “distraction.”

They bury autopsies because of what the autopsies might ignite.

Internal blame wars.

Factional warfare.

Donor backlash.

Media narratives.

Career destruction.

That’s why reports disappear.

Always has been.

“Distraction” was never the reason.

It was the euphemism.

And Thursday…proved it.

The Timeline Tells the Entire Story

You Don’t Need a Leak When the Sequence Explains Everything

Watch the sequence carefully.

Because the sequence convicts them all by itself.

In February 2025, Ken Martin becomes DNC chair and promises a full investigation into the 2024 collapse.

The report is expected in spring.

Then delayed.

Then delayed again.

Then buried…entirely.

By December, Martin announces he will not release it because the party needs to “look forward.”

Case closed, right?

Except suddenly…

Thursday arrives.

CNN is preparing a story.

And…out of nowhere Martin reverses course and releases all 192 pages.

But…here’s where it gets incredible.

He releases the report…while simultaneously trashing it.

Saying:

• He’s “not proud” of it.

• It “does not meet my standards.”

• He doesn’t “endorse what’s in it.”

• The DNC cannot verify portions of it.

Now…stop right there…and ask the only question that matters:

What changed between Wednesday and Thursday?

Not the report.

The report was allegedly flawed the entire time.

Not the quality.

Not the facts.

Not the missing sections.

The only thing that changed…

…was that Martin was about to lose control of the story.

That’s it.

Transparency…suddenly became important…the exact moment transparency became unavoidable.

That’s not leadership.

That’s containment.

If the Report Was So Bad…

Why Hide It for Months?

Martin’s defenders are now trying to pivot.

They claim the report was unfinished.

Poorly sourced.

Sloppy.

Unusable.

Fine.

Let’s assume every word of that is true.

That still destroys Martin’s credibility.

Because who commissioned it?

Who hired the author?

Who oversaw the process?

Who approved the delays?

Who failed to demand sourcing?

Who sat on it for months?

Ken Martin.

You don’t get to hire the contractor…

Ignore the construction…

Watch the house collapse…

Then stand in front of the rubble pretending you’re merely an innocent bystander.

If the report was incompetent…

That incompetence points directly back to management.

And Martin…was management.

Here’s the Trick They’re Pulling

“The Report Was Bad” Is the Perfect Escape Hatch

Notice how elegant this maneuver is politically.

By calling the report flawed…

Martin never has to argue against its conclusions.

He never has to debate the substance.

Never has to answer uncomfortable questions.

Never has to defend the omissions.

Instead, he gets to wave the entire thing away with:

“Don’t look too closely. It’s unreliable.”

That’s an extraordinarily convenient shield.

Because once the conversation becomes about the report’s quality…

…it stops being about what the report avoided saying.

And THAT is where things get dangerous.

The Most Important Things Are Missing

And That’s Not an Accident People Easily Ignore

According to CNN’s review, the report largely avoids serious discussion of:

• Biden seeking a second term

• Harris becoming the nominee without a true competitive process

• The Gaza backlash in states like Michigan

Think about how insane that is.

Those weren’t side issues.

Those WERE the election.

Those were the defining internal fractures of the Democratic Party in 2024.

An autopsy that avoids those subjects is like a plane crash investigation that never mentions the engines.

And…here’s where it becomes impossible not to notice the pattern:

The omissions just happen to protect the exact people and factions most capable of detonating a civil war inside the party.

Convenient.

Very convenient.

Maybe the Draft Was Incomplete…

But the Suppression Was Fully Intentional

Now to be fair…

There’s an important distinction here.

We cannot prove every omission was deliberate.

The document is unfinished.

Missing sections.

Missing conclusions.

Missing executive summaries.

It’s possible later drafts would have addressed some of these landmines.

Fine.

But honestly?

That barely matters anymore.

Because the true scandal…is no longer the contents.

It’s the handling.

That part is crystal clear.

Ken Martin made a deliberate decision to bury the report.

He labeled transparency a “distraction.”

He suppressed it for months.

And he only reversed course…once a major media outlet forced his hand.

That’s not ambiguity.

That’s behavior.

And behavior…is often the clearest confession in politics.

They Created the Worst Possible Outcome

This Is the Kind of Damage Panic Creates

Here’s the dark comedy in all of this.

Martin managed to engineer the exact disaster…he was supposedly trying to avoid.

Had the report simply been released on schedule…

The outrage cycle probably lasts 72 hours.

Moderates scream.

Progressives scream back.

Cable panels argue.

Everyone moves on.

Instead?

Now the story isn’t merely Democratic failure in 2024.

Now the story is:

• Suppression

• Secrecy

• Incompetence

• Panic

• Narrative control

• Institutional distrust

That’s infinitely worse.

Because voters can survive disagreement.

What destroys parties…is the feeling that leadership hides the truth from its own side.

And once that suspicion hardens…

Every future explanation sounds manufactured.

Every future denial sounds rehearsed.

Every future “trust us” becomes radioactive.

The Most Revealing Part?

None of This Was Hard to Predict

That’s the thing that keeps sticking with me.

Nothing about this required insider knowledge.

No leaks.

No whistleblowers.

No secret sources.

The moment “distraction” became the official excuse…

…the real story was already obvious.

Thursday didn’t reveal something shocking.

It simply confirmed what the behavior…had already screamed for months.

Ken Martin did not release an autopsy.

He released evidence of a burial.

Then tried to frame the shovel as transparency.

#HoldFast

Back soon.

-Jack

Jack Hopkins

P.S.

The real danger for Democrats isn’t the report itself.

It’s what ordinary voters learn from episodes like this.

Because once people conclude that party leadership manages information the same way corporations manage scandals…

…every future message gets filtered through suspicion.

And when trust collapses inside your own coalition…

You don’t merely lose elections.

You lose the ability to persuade the people who once wanted to believe you.

Sources

The release and Martin’s self-distancing statement

• DNC releases 2024 autopsy, with chair apologizing for ‘creating an even bigger distraction’ — NBC News. Confirms Martin released the report under intense pressure, apologized, and that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro had privately confronted him about a lack of transparency.

• Ken Martin bows to pressure, releases 2024 DNC autopsy report he’s ‘not proud of’ — Star Tribune. Documents Martin’s “I don’t endorse what’s in this report, or what’s left out of it” statement.

• DNC Chair Ken Martin releases 2024 election loss autopsy report amid pressure — The Hill. Covers Martin saying the report “wasn’t ready for primetime” and that its release did little to quiet criticism.

The timeline: the February 2025 promise and the December reversal

• Democratic National Committee blocks release of its 2024 election autopsy — Politico (via Yahoo). Documents Martin’s February 2025 pledge (”Of course it will be released”) and the December decision to break it.

• DNC won’t release its report on what went wrong for Democrats in 2024 — NBC News. The original “distraction”/”does this help us win?” justification for shelving the report.

The “distraction” framing and Martin’s own admission it backfired

• DNC releases 2024 election autopsy report, chair apologizes after party blowback — KATV/TNND. Confirms Martin reversed course in December over distraction concerns, then released the report Thursday.

CNN forced Martin’s hand

• Read the DNC’s 2024 autopsy obtained by CNN — CNN Politics. States plainly that “the DNC withheld the report until presented with CNN’s reporting about much of its contents.”

• Autopsy of the autopsy: How the DNC’s 2024 post-mortem turned into a crisis — CNN Politics. The inside account; details the disorganized process and the topics the report avoids.

The omissions: Biden, the nomination, and Gaza

• DNC Autopsy of 2024 Loss Doesn’t Mention Gaza or Israel at All — The Intercept. Confirms the words “Israel,” “Palestine,” “Arab American,” and “Muslim” appear nowhere in the 192-page report.

• ‘Almost Worthless’: Progressives Rip 2024 Autopsy the DNC Didn’t Want You To See — Common Dreams. Covers the omission of Biden’s reelection decision, Harris’s replacement of him atop the ticket, and Gaza.

• Democrats finally release 2024 election autopsy after criticism — Axios. Reports the process was “disorganized throughout,” that author Paul Rivera worked part-time and never interviewed Biden, Harris, or Walz, and that he reportedly told a pro-Palestinian group Gaza hurt Democrats — yet the final report omits it.

The author, Paul Rivera, and the management-failure point

• ‘The report is a disaster’: Democrats pan DNC’s 2024 ‘autopsy’ — MS NOW. Identifies Rivera as a longtime associate of Martin’s and reports he refused to produce a finished version.

• The DNC’s election autopsy ignites new Democratic infighting — Deseret News. Notes Rivera was unpaid and, per Axios, no longer working with the DNC after the release.

The original column being responded to

• Opinion: The DNC achieved the worst of all worlds with its 2024 autopsy — MS NOW. The piece your newsletter is built in response to.