The hosts of “The Morning Meeting” on “2-Way,” Mark Halperin, Dan Turrentine, and Sean Spicer, give the Democratic Party leadership failing grades:

MARK HALPERIN: Punchbowl News, a Washington insider publication, regularly looks at the leaders of both parties and ranks them. Let’s steal that idea just for today. Schumer and Jeffries-Dan, what letter grade would you give them for their performance so far in 2025? Letter grade for Schumer, letter grade for Jeffries, in terms of serving the interests of their party? DAN TURRENTINE: F. They have no strategy. Both of them-F. HALPERIN: Both of them an F? TURRENTINE: They started unsure of where to go. They remain terrified of the base. They have no understanding of modern tactics in terms of how to organize and break through. And they have zero strategy. We’re heading into a budget negotiation this fall-after the disaster in March-and they still have no strategy. HALPERIN: Sean, do you give them an F or an F-minus? TURRENTINE: F-plus. SEAN SPICER: Well, when I was in high school, we used to call it a circle D. That meant, Mr. Spicer, you’re failing the class, but you try, so we’ll give you a pass. I don’t even give them a circle D. TURRENTINE: Yeah, they’re not trying. SPICER: Dan’s right. It’s the definition of flailing-just throwing mud at a wall. Look at Schumer’s Twitter feed yesterday. He tweeted about Jim Crow, Epstein, inflation, tariffs… TURRENTINE: Even his tweets read like a statement in the congressional gallery. SPICER: Because they are! TURRENTINE: There’s no authenticity, no humor-nothing that breaks through. Just dry and boring. HALPERIN: I’ll give him a D-minus. But Punchbowl can’t give them an F because they need to get stuff from them every day. We don’t have that problem. But those two guys, more and more, look worse and worse. I thought they were biding their time, figuring things out-how to raise money for elections, how to be relevant, how to develop a strategy on appropriations. But they just don’t seem like they get where they are. SPICER: Can I take this one step further? Dan, if we’re both in agreement that this doesn’t look good-and it’s not like you’re saying a C and I’m saying a D-at what point do rank-and-file Democrats say, I can’t sit back and watch this happen. We need new leadership? Is it after getting their clocks cleaned in the next election? We’ve seen this on the Republican side. Think about John Boehner, Paul Ryan, McCarthy. Sometimes more churn than others, but there’s a sense of, We need to change. HALPERIN: You can’t beat something with nothing, and no one is going to rise up against this. TURRENTINE: Two things, Sean. Watch for Schumer-he’s got Roy Cooper, he’s trying to recruit Sherrod Brown in Ohio, and Janet Mills in Maine to run against Susan Collins. If he gets all three and somehow they pull it off, then he’ll buy himself more time. He’s an inside baseball operator. If that doesn’t happen, and we don’t make any progress? Watch September. I think we’re going to cave on the budget-it’ll be a complete disaster. Booker’s gonna do what he just did. Cortez Masto, Fetterman, what’s-her-name in Michigan-they’re going to say, You’ve lost your effing mind. I’m going to sign this. For Jeffries-if we end up netting a loss of ten seats or more, he’s gone. Although, watch the Congressional Black Caucus.

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