Minnesota’s Democratic Party, known as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), debuted an official podcast recently — only to be inundated with a flood of negative reviews.
“The DFL Debrief” is hosted by the party’s top researcher, William Davis, who has previously called for Republicans to be beheaded. He was forced to stop posting on social media in 2019 after calling the USS Minneapolis-St. Paul a “murder boat,” criticizing the Navy’s decision to dedicate the vessel to Minnesota.
DFL Chair Ken Martin and party communications director Brian Evans aid Davis in running the show.
Despite his storied past of violent and controversial statements, Davis remains in the DFL’s good graces and has resumed making audacious claims via his new podcast.
One recent episode is titled “The Anti-Vax Quack Running for MN Governor,” taking aim at state senator, medical doctor and gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen. The podcast opens with negatively edited clips of Jensen speaking before the hosts accuse him of running a “misinformation campaign” regarding coronavirus.
Jensen maintains that state officials mismanaged the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting how the majority of Minnesota’s virus-related deaths have occurred in long-term care facilities. In his view, faulty predictive models, a lack of transparency and a failure of Gov. Tim Walz’s leadership contributed to the outsized number of deaths among the elderly.
In response, the DFL has branded him “dangerous,” said he peddles “propaganda” and accused him of bolstering “extremists.” Listeners who have reviewed “The DFL Debrief” seem to disagree with this assessment. The overwhelming majority of reviews give the show a paltry 1/5 stars.
“I’m not sure they talk to actual Minnesotans in their daily lives,” one reviewer writes. The show even earned a scathing review from a self-identified liberal: “As a liberal I am disappointed,” the user writes. “Name-calling and insults with little intellectual thought is quite a bore and frankly an embarrassment to whomever created this. Let’s do better … Perhaps change the hosts, who are unremarkable in their own regard.”
Other episodes of “The DFL Debrief” center around Juneteenth, LGBTQ people and efforts to legalize marijuana.
Kyle Hooten
Kyle Hooten is Managing Editor of Alpha News. His coverage of Minneapolis has been featured on television shows like Tucker Carlson Tonight and in print media outlets like the Wall Street Journal.
