David Hogg and Ken Martin are two men who deserve each other — which is sort of the problem for both.

If you’ve followed politics even briefly, you’re familiar with Hogg, the anti-gun activist who became famous after the Parkland shooting in 2018 — although he wasn’t actually at school that day. (You may perhaps remember that he rode his bike over once he realized there would be cameras he could get in front of; a young Chuck Schumer in the making.)

Hogg recently got himself elected as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and now faces a re-vote over what the DNC is calling a procedural issue. (It has nothing to do with the fact that he’s spending $20 million from his own PAC to primary insufficiently left-wing Democrats in safe blue seats. None whatsoever.)

Martin, meanwhile, is the DNC chair. It’s probably not a good augury when the chair needs to be introduced and the most notable vice chair doesn’t. Nor, indeed, is it a good sign that after taking the reigns in February, all hell has broken loose for Martin.

Now, in leaked audio of a Zoom call that happened on May 15, it almost sounds like Martin is on the verge of crying at the prospect of Hogg’s extracurricular activities.

The audio, first obtained by Politico and published Sunday, features “Ken Martin express[ing] frustration and self-doubt in a meeting with other party leaders,” the subheadline read.

This is one of the few times Politico could be accused of underselling party disarray, as Martin seems to choke up before collecting himself and telling Hogg he doesn’t want to do the job he was elected to.

“I’ll be very honest with you, for the first time in my 100 days on this job [pause] … the other night I said to myself for the first time, I don’t know if I wanna do this anymore,” Martin said while speaking to Hogg.

“No one knows who the hell I am, right? I’m trying to get my sea legs underneath of me and actually develop any amount of credibility, so I can go out there and raise the money and do the job I need to to put ourselves in a position to win,” Martin continued.

“And again, I don’t think you intended this, but you essentially destroyed any chance I have to show the leadership that I need to. So it’s really frustrating.”

Martin, as Politico’s Holly Otterbein noted, “paused twice while appearing to choke up.”

Hogg, meanwhile, took to social media to try and stem rumors that this was from his camp.

“A lot of people are accusing me of leaking this recording. These are the messages from the reporter who wrote the story,” he wrote, along with a screenshot of Otterbein’s messages to him on iOS.

A lot of people are accusing me of leaking this recording. These are the messages from the reporter who wrote the story. pic.twitter.com/TMggS9UDt6

— David Hogg ???? (@davidhogg111) June 8, 2025

You may notice what’s missing from this, as one Republican consultant did:

So did you leak it, bro?

— Alex Bruesewitz ???????? (@alexbruesewitz) June 8, 2025

Hogg did not, it’s worth noting, reply to this. It comes after the other DNC vice chair caught up in the Hogg re-vote imbroglio, Malcolm Kenyatta, accused him of being the leaker.

“For weeks I’ve pointed out David’s causal relationship with the truth,” Kenyatta said in a statement, according to Semafor.

Hogg has denied responsibility for the clip emerging but, as Semafor noted, “did not respond to further questions.”

Meanwhile, the 51-year-old Martin said through a representative, “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I took this job to fight Republicans, not Democrats,” the statement continued. “As I said when I was elected, our fight is not within the Democratic Party. Our fight is and has to be solely focused on Donald Trump and the disastrous Republican agenda. That’s the work that I will continue to do every day.”

It’s also worth noting that the chair of the DNC had to say through a representative in a statement that “I’m not going anywhere,” not say it himself. Which is kind of the issue when you’re dealing with slap-fight between a 25-year-old pipsqueak who may have very bad ideas but at least tries to make them stick versus a man more than twice his age who acts like a scared kid in comparison to Hogg.

It’s almost like a Shakespearean one-on-one fighting game: Dumb Macbeth vs. Dumb Hamlet. Who wins: the ambitious, usurping twerp or the vacillating man-child?

You’ll find out by Wednesday, when the DNC officially votes on whether to hold new vice chair elections. A warning for Mr. Martin, though — and a spoiler alert if you haven’t managed to catch it in the 425 years since it was written — but even though Hamlet wins the final battle, he still ends up perishing, too.

Or, perhaps you can remember another book that you haven’t read, the Bible. In that, God sends confusion over the enemies of Israel, so they slaughtered each other several times in the Old Testament. Could it also be possible He is sending confusion over the party that hates Him, His Word, and His people? I wouldn’t put that theory out of mind, especially as Martin proves that he’ll stand up for rioters and illegal immigrants in Los Angeles but can’t effectively stand up to a 25-year-old mental dwarf.

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