Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville criticized Vice President Harris' campaign this week, saying the “incalculable” spending would tarnish the Democratic Party's brand and could lead to regular audits.
“The resistance is going to have a hard time raising money. These fundraisers are burned out,” Carville said on Thanksgiving Day. episode of the “Political War Room.”
“They're really angry right now about the damage that the 2024 campaign has done, the damage that this decade has done to the Democratic brand, it's almost immeasurable, almost immeasurable,” he said. added.
Carville's comments come amid scrutiny of Harris' campaign spending after she lost the general election to President-elect Trump earlier this month.
Harris told donors and the Democratic National Committee's finance chief on a Tuesday call that her campaign had raised about $1.5 billion. Despite the fundraising, there have been reports that the campaign is more than $20 million in debt, which the campaign denies.
The DNC plans to hold a leadership election in February, less than two weeks after President Trump's inauguration. On a recent podcast, Carville noted that people have asked him to throw his hat into the ring, but suggested bidding is not on his to-do list.
Still, he said his campaign's finances would most likely be audited among his concerns.
“The number one policy is we're going to audit everything. We're going to audit the campaign,” Carville said Thursday, especially the pro-Harris super PAC, which was one of her top donors during the campaign. “We're going to audit Future Forward,” he said, referring to the company by name. We're going to audit the DNC and make sure people know about it. ”
“But without full transparency, we think this campaign raised $1.5 billion. Well, we know the last we saw Future Forward was $900 million. So we think it was up to $1 billion before the election,” the strategist continued. “That's a crazy $2.5 billion.”
He further added: “Does anyone know where that money went? I mean, there are several places [can] Please start looking. ”
Carville, who served as a senior adviser to former President Clinton, said in an interview Thursday that the amount of money and “the number of lobbyists involved in this campaign are staggering.”
He predicted Harris would win the 2024 race, but said earlier this week that “this was a very difficult election for Democrats.” The next day, Carville said the party needed to reassess how voters consume media to better retain voters.
In remarks to reporters after a call with donors earlier this week, Harris chose to share her optimism rather than focus on money issues.
“One thing to remember: don’t let others take away your power. You have the same power, the same purpose, the same engagement and inspiration you had before November 5th. The same goes for the ability to give.” stated in the comment clip Democratic Party shared on social platform X.
