The DNC hasn’t been completely silent. The national party called on Facebook to take down false ads targeting the former vice president. It operates a second, more aggressive “War Room” Twitter account that has been busy whacking Trump and Republicans. But the size of its following is just a fraction of the size of the national party account.

The party’s low-key role in the recent fray is sparking a growing sense of frustration, according to interviews with nearly 20 DNC members and other prominent Democrats. There are complaints that the national party isn’t delivering a digital counter-punch, that it’s getting swamped by Republican fundraising, and doing little to combat an onslaught of incoming TV ads targeting Biden on Ukraine. And they lament that Democrats lack a prominent voice who is providing anything like the kind of sustained bombast coming from the Republican side.

“The DNC should be much more active and vigorous than they have been. It should have been and should now be more even more forceful in its condemnation of Trump,” said Don Fowler, a former DNC chair, who stressed he wasn’t criticizing the party’s current chair, Tom Perez. “They should consider at least putting out a statement pointing out that Biden has served with honor, has done nothing improper, illegal or unethical and that his record on these kinds of matters is essentially spotless and that Donald Trump is just a lying no-good son of a bitch.”

Part of the problem, defenders say, is that the DNC is working under an unusual constraint. Amid the fallout from the bitter 2016 presidential primary race — when Bernie Sanders’ supporters accused the party of rigging the process for the establishment favorite, Hillary Clinton — the DNC in 2018 adopted a strict pledge of neutrality in the next presidential primary. As a result, any attempt to defend Biden might be viewed by progressives as a violation of the pledge, and another effort to prop up a preferred candidate.

“There’s always a candidate who has a complaint about what the party is or isn’t doing,” said Kathy Sullivan, former New Hampshire Democratic Party chair. “I don’t think the party needs to do anything. Donald Trump is doing perfectly well jumping off a cliff all by himself. Nobody has to push him.”

Still, critics say that pledge, formally installed by Perez, has dictated the committee’s actions to the point of paralysis. There’s plenty of room for the party to push back on Trump on the issue of election meddling or how he’s complying with an impeachment inquiry without promoting Biden, they argue.

It’s an opinion that’s held in some quarters of the Biden campaign.

“No one on our team thinks the DNC should be out there with a giant Joe Biden sign running around town. But there are very few signs of the DNC aggressively pushing back on any of these misleading narratives from Trump,” a Biden adviser said. “This isn’t just about us. It’s about the Democratic Party and whoever the nominee is or any of the candidates are. Today, it’s Joe Biden. Tomorrow, it could be Elizabeth Warren or any of the other candidates.”

As proof of the sensitivity of the issue, relations between the DNC and the Biden campaign grew strained on Sunday when the campaign furnished a TV surrogate with a document of talking points — one of which was deemed too critical of the party by some DNC officials.

Another complaint is that the DNC is spending more time refereeing primary debates than aggressively confronting Trump. And those critics don’t think the rebuilding necessitated by the disastrous 2016 election cycle is moving quickly enough. The committee remains saddled in debt and, as of the end of August, had raised just $59.5 million this year compared to the RNC’s $141.4 million.

The national party is also lagging on the digital messaging front. The GOP has considerably larger social media followings on both Facebook and Twitter — key arenas where disinformation is spread and media coverage is influenced.

Beyond that, Republicans have already announced they would launch a $10 million TV ad campaign targeting Biden with Trump’s claim that the former vice president and his son engaged in corruption in Ukraine, accompanied by another $1 million in Facebook ads. The president’s re-election campaign is devoting $1 million of the anti-Biden television buy in the early nominating states alone.

“In this situation, if you don’t defend the guy by name and often and vigorously, you’re making him a further victim by the party, you’re not standing behind him,” said a DNC member who asked not to be named, referring to the attacks on Biden.

The DNC has not announced any advertising pushback.

“A lot of thinking went into not replicating the mistakes of 2016,” said Simon Rosenberg, who acted as a senior advisor to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2018. “I’m not sure as much thinking went into re-imagining the DNC’s communications responsibilities in an age of social media, disinformation and Trump.”

Some Democrats point the finger at Perez, claiming he hasn’t been visible enough in countering a massive Republican assault and the DNC hasn’t been aggressive enough in countering the president.

“We don’t have to get down in the mud. But we should be on the offensive,” said one DNC member who would only speak on the condition of anonymity. “I don’t think we’ve pushed back enough.”

Former DNC chairman Ed Rendell echoed that sentiment.

“I would like more of a response. And it doesn’t matter what candidate we’re talking about,” said the former Pennsylvania governor and Biden surrogate. “If Elizabeth Warren is in the lead in all the polls and Donald Trump levels attacks at her that are unfair, the DNC should come to her defense. Whether the DNC has the money to run a robust TV campaign in defense of the Trump TV campaign, I don’t know — and I’m not sure that they do — but they could put out a statement.”

DNC War Room spokeswoman Adrienne Watson defended the committee’s work, saying it is wisely sinking its resources into data, tech and organization in advance of the 2020 election and that each presidential campaign was briefed on how the DNC would approach the primary and “received overwhelming support for this approach.”

“Chair Perez and the DNC have spent the last three years battling Trump at every turn while rebuilding the party after a crushing loss,” Watson said. "Our job is to hold Trump accountable, define him in the battleground states, and speak directly with voters about his broken promises and abuse of power, and that's exactly what we'll continue to do.”

Mo Elleithee, who served as DNC spokesman under former Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, defended the committee’s approach.

“It’s an impossible job,” he said, crediting Perez with being “fairly smart in messaging against Trump.”

Former DNC Chair Howard Dean said the DNC has two jobs before a nominee is chosen: run a fair primary and a good convention.

“The DNC ought not to put its finger on the scale. Period. End of discussion.” Dean said. “It’s not the DNC’s job to attack until after we have a nominee.”

He added that Democrats would go ballistic if the DNC sprang to the defense of Warren, Sanders or Buttigieg if Trump attacked them. “Can you imagine the howling that would go on?” he said.

Neera Tanden, a former advisor to Hillary Clinton, said Perez has been right to take a back seat to members of Congress like Nancy Pelosi who are leading the impeachment inquiry because that issue is not about politics.

“Trump wants to make this a political battle between the parties,” she said. “And this is a battle about his abuse of office and the Constitution.”

Biden on Wednesday night dedicated an entire speech in Reno, Nevada to Trump’s attacks on him. Biden used the situation both to trash the president and advance the notion that Trump is scared of him.

“Joe Biden won't let Trump get away with gaslighting this country to hide his own wrongdoing, and no Democrat should let him off the hook,” Bill Russo, a Biden spokesman said in a statement. “We've been pleased to see the example of officials like Sen. Booker and Rep O’Rourke, who stood up for the facts while standing up to Trump, and the DNC who demanded that Facebook take down his ridiculous, false ad. It reminds us why we’re proud to be part of a party of values.”

Maggie Severns contributed to this report.

