Donna Brazile defends her decision to work for Fox News: 'I have my marbles'

Donna Brazile.
(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Donna Brazile is defending herself after facing some criticism for going to work for Fox News, saying she thought long and hard about the decision and stands by it.

The former Democratic National Committee chair, who earlier this week was hired as a contributor for the network, spoke with The New Yorker on Wednesday and again said she accepted the job in order to reach those who might disagree with her, arguing that "if you want to help the country, if you want to try to improve democracy, you have to go into places where you are uncomfortable and try to stir things up." Journalist Isaac Chotiner didn't seem to fully buy this explanation, asking if she thinks Fox News itself may have contributed to the very lack of civility in political discourse that she decries.

"Is Fox responsible alone?" Brazile asked. "No ... I don't want to blame it on one entity." She instead criticized "the entire media landscape," especially journalists who reported on emails of hers released by WikiLeaks, later saying, "I knew people were going to call and say, 'Don’t you know the house might stink up?' Yeah, but is that the only house that is stinky?"

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The conversation got a bit heated when Brazile said she hopes to "call out" racism, to which Chotiner responded that she'll be "seeing it a lot now" at Fox. "I hope you understand that you are having a conversation with me because I chose to call you back," Brazile said. "I understood that when I made this decision to call you that you probably wanted to get up in my crap about going on Fox." She later told Chotiner not to act "somehow appalled that a black woman, or a woman, or a liberal progressive" would go work for Fox, saying she has "all my marbles" and telling the reporter, "you don't know me."

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Brendan Morrow

Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.