See the turbulent Florida delegation breakfast featuring Debbie Wasserman Schultz unfold in real time
By Louis Jacobson, Tampa Bay Times staff writer
PHILADELPHIA — It was not entirely unexpected, but it came suddenly: An otherwise ordinary Florida delegation breakfast at the Democratic National Convention erupted into a frenzy of booing and catcalls as Debbie Wasserman Schultz — the soon-to-be resigning Democratic National Committee chairwoman — took the podium.
The room included a significant number of Bernie Sanders supporters who blame Wasserman Schultz, a member of Congress from Florida as well as DNC chair, for putting a finger (or a whole hand) on the scales for Hillary Clinton in the primary. The previous day, she said she would resign after embarrassing details from DNC communications emerged from a hack of the committee’s emails on her watch.
It was something of a surprise that Wasserman Schultz actually kept her commitment to address Florida delegates on the morning of July 25 at the Philadelphia Downtown Marriott, given the escalating backlash she had inspired in recent days. And in fact, her appearance did not go well. She kept going with her speech, but it was drowned out by booing and cries of “shame.”
You can follow the fracas start to finish in the following chronological series of tweets from the ballroom.
Louis Jacobson is covering the Republican and Democratic conventions for PolitiFact, a fact-checking project of the Tampa Bay Times. PolitiFact is also covering the conventions on Medium as part of a grant from the Knight Foundation.
