NEW YORK (AP) — One day after the Democratic National Committee released its botched autopsy report on the 2024 election, party leaders continued limping toward the midterm elections — even as other prominent Democrats demanded major changes at the very top of the organization.
Ken Martin, the committee's chair, faced new calls to resign from elected officials and Democratic operatives, who say he mismanaged a report originally intended to be a comprehensive examination of the party’s failures and a potential road map for its future. Martin kept the document under wraps for months, stoking speculation about its contents, only to release it this week and insist it was too flawed to be useful anyway.
“There doesn’t seem to be a plan to turn things around and the clock is ticking. November is literally around the corner,” Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Texas, told Semafor. “I believe it’s time for him to move on.”
“He should resign,” Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., said to Axios.
And in a radio interview, Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisc., said he agreed with a caller saying Martin should be replaced.
But Martin maintains support from many state party leaders, who have benefited from a steady stream of funding from national headquarters since he took over. In a conversation with DNC staff on Thursday, Martin apologized for his handling of the autopsy and said he was determined to continue leading the organization.
“This was a major mistake. I own it, and now it’s time for us to move forward at the DNC, and I hope that you’ll move forward with me,” Martin said, according to a person with knowledge of the call who was not authorized to disclose a private conversation.
Martin, a little-known Minnesota operative before emerging last year as the head of the national party’s formal political machine, has already faced criticism for dismal fundraising and inability to inspire confidence among his party's unruly membership.
However, there was no sign that a serious alternative was emerging. The Associated Press contacted a half dozen Democratic presidential prospects to gauge their support for Martin and all of them declined to weigh in.
The intraparty feud represented an extraordinary distraction for a Democratic Party showing signs of momentum in its fight to break President Donald Trump's grip on power in Washington. Democrats hope to regain majorities in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate in the November midterms, and Republicans could be vulnerable because of Trump's low approval ratings, dissatisfaction over the war in Iran and lingering economic frustration.
Martin's allies across the country lashed out at Democrats who were fueling the election-year drama, dismissing them as unhappy consultants and supporters of Martin's previous rivals for DNC leadership.
Kansas Democratic Party Chair Jeanna RePass described calls for the first-term chair to step down as “ridiculous and dangerous.”
“It is dangerous for Democrats to be playing politics with our leadership when these elections are five and a half months away,” she said. “The American people are counting on us.”
Janet Kleeb of Nebraska, who leads her state party and the DNC's association of state committees, said the fighting “is nuts.”
“I haven’t had a single chair come to me saying I think Ken needs to resign,” she said. “Ken was elected by the DNC members to do a four-year term, and he has not violated any of our rules or bylaws where there would be a two-thirds vote, right? Because that’s what it would take to remove the chair.”
Kleeb added, “These reports are such distraction.”
The long-awaited postelection autopsy said Kamala Harris “wrote off rural America” during the 2024 presidential campaign and failed to attack Trump with sufficient “negative firepower,” among other key findings.
Martin shared the 192-page report only after facing intense internal pressure from Democratic operatives. He originally promised to release the autopsy even before taking over the committee last year, only to keep it under wraps because he worried it would interfere with Democrats’ focus on the November midterms.
“I didn’t want to create a distraction,” Martin wrote on Substack. “Ironically, in doing so, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction. And for that, I sincerely apologize.”
Although the autopsy criticizes Democrats’ focus on “identity politics,” it sidesteps some of the most controversial elements of the 2024 campaign. The report does not address former President Joe Biden’s decision to seek reelection, the rushed selection of Harris to replace him after he dropped out or the party’s acrimonious divide over the war in Gaza.
Kinnard reported from Columbia, South Carolina.
FILE - DNC chair candidate Ken Martin speaks at the Democratic National Committee Winter Meeting in National Harbor, Md., Feb. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr., File)
Activists detained when their flotilla attempted to breach Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza say they have been mistreated at the hands of Israeli soldiers, describing beatings, tasers and attack dogs.
The Global Sumud Flotilla of 50 boats was intercepted in international waters some 250 miles (400 kilometers) off the coast of Israel, and activists along with journalists and at least one lawmaker from Italy were transferred onto military boats and brought to a larger military vessel at the Ashdod port in southern Israel, where they were held in containers, according to their accounts. They told The Associated Press they were punched and kicked, as well as dragged and pulled by their hair.
Israel's far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has called for deporting political opponents and was barred from mandatory military service for his extreme views, sparked global outrage after promoting a video of himself taunting activists from a flotilla to Gaza who were detained by his police force. Foreign leaders have condemned his on-camera treatment of the detainees and several countries summoned Israeli envoys to air their concerns.
Israel denies mistreatment. The allegations were “false and entirely without factual basis,” said Zivan Freidin, a spokesperson for the Israeli Prison Service.
Some 420 activists departed for Turkey on Thursday after they were deported from Israel, many wearing gray sweatsuits and Arab kaffiyehs.
The AP spoke to some Thursday and Friday as they reached Istanbul, Athens and other European cities:
Here are their accounts:
He detailed being held in a container alongside other detainees shortly after the flotilla raid and he said some people were taken outside the containers where he heard them being physically assaulted.
“We faced periods where we couldn’t stand, our heads were bowed to the ground, we were dragged and pulled by our hair. The handcuffs left serious marks on us.”
After arriving at Ashdod port, Ozkan says he was denied the right to contact his lawyer, embassy officials or relatives back home. He describes being told to sign papers under duress, which he refused.
“When we refused to sign, they treated us like prisoners, creating a file, taking photos, forcibly handcuffing our hands and feet with iron shackles. And then, with the soldiers, dragged us along the ground, surrounded by dogs, releasing the dogs on us, before loading us into prison trucks.”
“When we got to Ashdod port, I was immediately grabbed by five IDF (soldiers) or police officers. They put my head down and started beating me. One of them had gloves on with hardened plastic and he started punching my face and it swelled shut,” he said, showing his black eye.
“During the crossing, we were put on our knees, blindfolded, and told to make sure the blindfold didn’t move. They repositioned mine 30 times because I kept trying to look around. And there’s absolutely no possibility in this situation to say ‘I’m a member of parliament’ or ‘I’m a journalist’ — you’re dealing with machines that scream and accompany their screaming with physical gestures. They put you flat on the ground, then on your knees, with zip ties on your wrists. The blindfold, plus an additional zip tie securing your wrists down to a metal structure, just a few inches from the deck. So you’re forced to travel in an extremely uncomfortable position on rough concrete. And I had cramps in my legs the whole time, obviously.”
After they were transferred to a ship that was used for detention “the treatment became immediately more violent. We entered through this small hatch and were shoved and dragged by force with our arms twisted behind our backs, forced to kneel in front of a wall with our heads down.”
At one point, he was thrown down “flat on my stomach, hands behind my back, face pressed, head pressed against the soaking wet and dirty floor of this ship — pressed down with their feet — and then they pressed my hands behind my back.”
Once inside the container, “I was kicked in the shin. Honestly, I don’t expect it. And they say ‘Welcome to Israel.’ Then a punch to the face, one from this side, one from that side. A closed-fist punch. I moved to get up and I got kicked in the leg. A little jolt from a taser to the ribs. And then I make it out the other side of this container and reach the deck.”
Mantovani said he was also strip searched, and his eye glasses and wallet discarded. He and the activists on his ship threw their cellphones into the sea when the Israeli boats approached, and he didn’t wear a watch on this mission after his was nearly confiscated on a previous flotilla.
“I was struck with a taser, beaten with punches and kicks, insulted and humiliated. On the prison ship there was a container that everyone had to pass through. You entered through one door and a group of six or seven people would beat you mercilessly until you emerged from the other side. Every single one of us went through that.”
Atmatzidis said he was being processed for identification when Ben-Gvir was touring the prison ship.
“The minister entered the room and asked me where I was from. I replied, ‘from Greece.’ He then asked why I was there, and I told him that I had come to deliver humanitarian aid to people who needed it. He responded, ‘Are you a friend of Hamas?’ I explained that our mission had no political agenda and was purely humanitarian. He was surrounded by four armed guards who aimed their weapons and laser sights at me while I sat there handcuffed behind my back.”
He added: "Whenever we told them that circulation was being cut off and our hands were going numb, they showed absolutely no mercy. I do not have the words to describe the brutality and cruelty of these people. It is something I will never forget.”
An activist from the Global Sumud Flotilla talks with the police upon his arrival at Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport in Athens, Greece, Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Varaklas)
An activist from the Global Sumud Flotilla kisses a woman upon his arrival at Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport in Athens, Greece, Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Michael Varaklas)
Activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla disembark a plane upon arriving at Istanbul Airport, in Istanbul, Turkey, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)
Italian members of the Global Sumud Flotilla arrive at the Fiumicino Airport in Rome on Thursday, May 21, 2026, after they were released and deported by the Israeli government after attempting to reach Gaza. (Cecilia Fabiano/LaPresse via AP)
Activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla comfort each other upon their arrival at Istanbul Airport, in Istanbul, Turkey, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)
