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MINNEAPOLIS, MN – Democratic National Committee (DNC) Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta is among the party’s leaders calling for Democrats to become “more aggressive in making life better for people.”
It was a common theme as more than 400 DNC committee members from all 50 states and seven territories huddled this past week for their summer meeting, which was held in Minnesota’s largest city.
As Democrats hunger for more forceful resistance against President Donald Trump’s sweeping and controversial agenda, DNC Chair Ken Martin kicked off the three-day confab by targeting the president, arguing Trump’s acting as “a dictator-in-chief” and that his second administration is “fascism dressed in a red tie.”
Martin, pointing to the forceful response by Democrats to moves this summer by Trump and Republicans to create more right-leaning U.S. House seats in states across the country through rare mid-decade congressional redistricting ahead of next year’s midterm elections, told committee members that he’s “sick and tired of this Democratic Party bringing a pencil to a knife fight.”
DNC CHAIR DEMANDS DEMOCRATS ‘STOP BRINGING A PENCIL TO A KNIFE FIGHT’
Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta addresses the DNC’s summer meeting, on August 27, 2025 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Paul Steinhauser – Fox News )
“We cannot be the only party that plays by the rules anymore,” he urged.
Kenyatta, a 35-year-old state lawmaker from battleground Pennsylvania who was elected as a DNC vice chair in February, is echoing that message.
“We’ve been playing checkers. They’re playing Grand Theft Auto,” Kenyatta said about the Trump administration and the Republicans, as he referred to the long-running and popular action-adventure video game series that revolves around carjacking and shooting. “They’ve stolen their next car, and then running over the fire hydrant.”
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Kenyatta, who has traveled extensively across the country in his new role, emphasized in a Fox News Digital interview on the sidelines of the DNC meeting that Democrats “have to engage in a level of fight, not power for power’s sake, but we have to fight hard because we understand what’s at stake for working people and working families.”
He claimed that while Democrats work “to make life better for workers” and are “in this for the people, Donald Trump, the Republican Party, are in this for the billionaires. They can say differently, but if you look at what they do when they’re in power, they make life better for billionaires. Make life suck for us.”
Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta is interviewed by Fox News Digital on the sidelines of the DNC’s summer meeting, on August 26, 2025 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Paul Steinhauser – Fox News )
And Kenyatta, pointing to Trump’s immense dominance over the GOP, argued that Democrats “don’t have a leader that demands fealty, who throws up Kim Jong Un-style signs of himself around our nation’s capital. There are no signs hanging around here of Ken Martin or of me, or of anybody else.”
But Democrats face a multitude of problems as they try to escape the political wilderness.
Democrats are aiming to rebound after last year’s elections, when the party lost control of the White House and the Senate and fell short in their bid to win back the House majority. And Republicans made gains with voters who make up key parts of the Democratic Party’s base.
And the situation has only deteriorated for the Democrats in the 10 months since last year’s election setbacks, according to key metrics.
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The Democrats’ brand is deeply unpopular, especially with younger voters, as the party’s poll numbers continue to drop to all-time lows in national surveys.
And the DNC faces a massive fundraising deficit at the hands of the rival Republican National Committee (RNC), as well as concerns over lagging party registration.
Former RNC chair Michael Whatley, who formally stepped down earlier this month as he runs for the Senate, argued in a Fox News Digital interview that the Democrats “are moving further and further and farther to the left. They are walking away from Main Street right now. They are beholden to left-wing radical woke policies.”
“They haven’t learned a single thing from their election losses in 2024,” Whatley claimed.
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But Kenyatta is optimistic heading into next year’s midterm elections, when the Democrats will try to win back majorities in Congress, and Republicans, as the party in power, may face the traditional political headwinds.
Pointing to Trump, Kenyatta said the “Democratic Party is going to stand in his way every single step of the way. And we’re going to do it by winning elections up and down the ballot. And we’re certainly going to do it by winning back the House of Representatives in 2026.”
