MS NOW’s Michael Steele confronted a Democratic National Committee (DNC) official on Thursday over the logic behind releasing an autopsy report on former Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 election loss.

DNC Chair Ken Martin released the report this week under growing pressure from others within the party. He included a disclaimer saying the report does not meet his standards.

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-ID), an associate DNC chair, joined MS NOW’s The Weeknight where she defended Martin, but stressed he was not in charge of the autopsy report itself and it’s time to “move on.”

Steele could not wrap his head around the timing, arguing that the DNC decided to stall the momentum Democrats may have had after recent special elections victories.

Steele, who served as RNC chair from 2009 to 2011, trashed the autopsy report itself, saying it presents nothing new and doesn’t “amount to a bucket of spit.” All it’s done, he warned Beatty, is give Republicans a distraction to “talk about.”

He said:

I don’t understand why y’all can’t get out of your own way. This is a report that should have been released at the time because what I’ve just heard from you is that nothing in that report has changed from the day it was first released to today. So if you’ve changed nothing, if you have not cleaned it up, if you’ve not made it better, if you’ve not answered the constituent questions within the DNC, why are you doing this today? And why has the chairman or anyone else in the leadership decided to take away the momentum? We are wasting a segment of this hour talking about something other than the things you leveled up, which is what you’ve been doing and communicating with the American people to move them to the point where you have won 37 special elections. So why are you getting in your own way with a report that don’t amount to a bucket of spit? In terms of your ability to win this November, we are watching this administration strip mine, strip mine the American economy, strip mine the kitchen tables of the American people. The party is sitting here talking about a report that no one cares about, your own words. So help me understand why, to Symone’s first point, why get it out of the way? I wouldn’t release the thing at all at this point because it furthers nothing for the Democrats when the president and Republicans are saying — you know what you’ve done? You’ve given Republicans now something to talk about.

Beatty admitted she agreed with Steele’s points and stressed again Democrats should “move on” and focus on momentum going into the midterm elections.

“I don’t disagree with you, Michael, and that’s why in the statement I released, I said, it’s happened. And so I have to take the position of whether we should or shouldn’t have until the reality has happened. Now, I’ll go back to agreeing with you. And that’s in my statement, I was very clear, we can’t let this consume or distract us because nobody is calling us about that. And this is why it was important for me to be here to say, I don’t disagree with you. But it’s been released,” she said.

Watch above via MS NOW.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!