During the second part of Sean Hannity’s sit down interview with Assange from inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, which aired on Fox News on Wednesday evening, the online publisher stated that the Democratic National Committee no longer supports the interests of those they represent.
"It can only go through that reformation if it looks at the genuine reasons for the loss," Assange said. "The genuine reason, to my mind, for the loss, is [that] they didn’t pick the strongest candidate… That didn’t happen. Why didn’t it happen? Because the DNC … no longer represented the genuine interests of the Democratic party.”
Assange has been outspoken on the Democratic Party administration rigging the election in favor of Clinton over Senator Bernie Sanders. Emails released by WikiLeaks revealed deep collusion between the party and Clinton’s campaign. Assange specifically cited the now-DNC chairwoman Donna Brazile giving Clinton’s team debate questions in advance. He urged the party to use the information that they published to take a good hard look in the mirror, so that they can reform.
"So, my message to the US Democratic Party is,” Assange said, “take the information that we have published, which shows who the different players are and how they work within the DNC, learn from it and reform."
Assange praised President-elect Donald Trump for communicating directly with the public, instead of going through the media, and urged him to adopt the transparency championed by WikiLeaks.
"If you can get the information out as soon as possible, then you can correct as soon as possible," Assange said. "So I think that Donald Trump, early on in his administration, he needs to set a standard. He needs to go to someone in that Cabinet, ‘OK, you’re a friend, maybe even [an] ally, but you did the wrong thing here by the American people, so you’re fired.’ And that standard needs to be set early."
Trump has faced extreme criticism for tweeting his skepticism of Russian hacking claims by US intelligence agencies, while also citing Assange’s claim that no state actors were involved in the DNC email leaks.
Assange entered the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on June 19, 2012, and applied for political asylum, which was granted. Since that time, the building has been encircled by police waiting to arrest him for allegations against him in Sweden, a country that has refused to rule out the publisher’s extradition to the United States.
According to the findings of a 16-month investigation by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD), the WikiLeaks founder is being arbitrarily and unlawfully detained, and must immediately be released and compensated.
