Dem Civil War: Pelosi Fires Back at Warren

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pushed back on the notion the Democratic Party was “out of touch” with average Americans in response to comments made by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) during an interview Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”

Pelosi, who has served in the House since 1988, took issue with Warren’s depictions of a severely out-of-touch party in need of desperate revitalization. During a speech delivered Saturday at the Progressive Congress Strategy Summit in Baltimore, Warren demanded her Party “grow a backbone” and implement immediate and sweeping reconstruction.

“But I was a new leader when I emerged myself, so I’m all for that. But that’s not the point.”

“Does the Democratic Party need new leaders to touch base on this stuff?” host Chuck Todd asked Pelosi. “Whether it’s Hillary Clinton, yourself, [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer — you’ve all be in power a long time. And there was a rejection of that in the 2016 election. Do you accept that?”

But Pelosi was unwilling to agree with Warren and admit that the Party needed new leadership across the board.

“Well, we have plenty of room for all kinds of leadership at every level. Right now, we need experience as well as new leadership,” Pelosi responded before championing herself as a “new leader” in her days long past.

“But I was a new leader when I emerged myself, so I’m all for that. But that’s not the point. The point is, who has the leverage?” Pelosi said. “The American people had the impression — some — that Donald Trump was going to give them the leverage when he became president.”

[lz_third_party align=center includes=”https://twitter.com/MeetThePress/status/828257876980400128″]

Although Pelosi attempted to deflect Todd’s line of questioning throughout the interview and focus on the flaws she perceives that exist within the Republican Party, Todd kept bringing the conversation back to Warren’s comments.

“But we cannot let ourselves off the hook so easily, not as progressives, not as Democrats. The excuses end now,” Warren had said. “There are some in the Democratic Party who urge caution … They say this is just a tactical problem. We need better data. We need better social media. We need better outreach. We need better talking points.”

[lz_related_box id=”280519″]

“Better talking points? Are you kidding me?” Warren continued. “People are so desperate for economic change in this country that Donald Trump was just inaugurated as president, and people think we just have a messaging problem?”

And Todd called Pelosi out when she insisted that Warren focused on the “messaging problem” and not the Party’s need for fresh leadership and substantive policy changes.

“It’s not about a new set of talking points. It’s actually about policies that aren’t working for those folks,” Todd said.

“Well, they, it, we — but they have,” Pelosi stammered in response. “What — let’s see the record.”

But Pelosi’s brief review of “the record,” which was comprised of one example of the Democrats leading the effort to bail out the auto industry when Republicans cautioned against it, quickly devolved into further Republican bashing as Pelosi deflected.

“The record is that — what did we do? We bailed out the auto industry, saving so many jobs, millions, when you take the indirect increase in jobs in that area,” Pelosi said. “The Republicans, at the time, said this would be interfering with the free market system if we bailed out the auto industry. They were on their heels. They’re now on top of the world.”

It didn’t take long for Todd to give up on Pelosi.

“I’m going to leave it right there,” Todd concluded.