Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the outgoing chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), said Thursday that “sometimes you just have to take one for the team.”
“This has been a difficult week, there’s no question about it,” Wasserman Schultz said in remarks at a reception hosted by the National Jewish Democratic Council, the first time she’s spoken publicly since announcing she would step down as chairwoman.
“It has been a remarkable team effort, and you know sometimes you just have to take one for the team, and that’s OK, it’s OK,” she said with a smile.
The DNC chief, who is also running for reelection to Congress in Florida, announced Sunday afternoon she would be stepping down at the end of the Democratic National Convention on Thursday.
Emails stolen in a hack of the DNC system that were leaked last weekend suggested top Democratic officials sought to undermine Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders’s campaign.
Uproar among Sanders supporters threatened to overshadow this week’s party convention in Philadelphia, which has included a series of speeches from Democratic heavy hitters including Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Vice President Biden, President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama.
Wasserman Schultz essentially removed herself from the convention proceedings, first dropping a planned speech and ultimately deciding not to open the convention, either, in addition to resigning after the event.
A Clinton campaign spokesperson had said Wasserman Schultz made the decision to step down to help facilitate a distraction-free convention.
The DNC email breach also interjected debate over foreign policy into the presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, with Democrats attributing the stolen emails to Russia and going after Trump’s past commenting speaking warmly of Russia’s leader.
Trump on Wednesday said he hoped Russia found Clinton’s deleted personal emails from her time as secretary of State, which was widely interpreted as sanctioning Russian cyberattacks on a U.S. citizen.
Clinton’s campaign criticized it as “a bridge too far,” and Trump on Thursday said he was being “sarcastic.”
“I can personally attest to how not funny it is,” Wasserman Schultz told attendees Thursday. “We were hacked by Russian espionage organizations, and for a presidential candidate to encourage that to happen again, I mean, it’s treasonous, it’s seditious, it’s unacceptable.”