DNC chair says she won't address convention as Sanders fans boo him for endorsing Clinton

The Democratic National Convention got off to a bumpy start on Monday as rifts in the party threatened to derail Hillary Clinton’s carefully planned presidential nomination just hours before the convention began.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the embattled chair of the national committee who is resigning over leaked emails showing her organization belittling Sanders’ campaign, announced that she would not be gaveling in the convention. She faced the rage of Bernie Sanders fans who believe she helped Clinton win the Democratic nomination.

“I have decided that in the interest of making sure that we can start the Democratic convention on a high note that I am not going to gavel in the convention,” Wasserman Schultz told the Florida Sun-Sentinel.

At the same time, supporters of Bernie Sanders booed during a speech Monday afternoon when he said he would work to elect Clinton and her vice-presidential pick, Tim Kaine. After giving what was essentially a stump speech hailing his campaign’s accomplishments, he mentioned Clinton’s name and was immediately interrupted by almost a minute of loud boos. Then the crowd started to chant “We want Bernie!”

“Brothers and sisters, this is the real world that we live in,” Sanders told his booing supporters. “Trump is a danger to the future of our country and must be defeated.” But after a year of campaigning on a political revolution, it appears that Sanders will have a difficult job convincing some of his supporters to vote for the candidate he endorsed.

Thousands of people marched through Philadelphia on Sunday and Monday, many of them Sanders supporters who told reporters they would support Trump or third-party candidates Gary Johnson or Jill Stein instead of Clinton.

It’s yet to be seen whether Wasserman Schultz’s resignation and decision not to address the convention will mollify the angry Bernie crowd. According to early reports, she will likely be replaced at the gavel by Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake in her capacity as secretary of the Democratic National Committee.