DALLAS – For Democrats to be competitive again, U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, suggested the party might consider replacing House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi after 2018.
“I think that for this particular Congress that Nancy is going to be the minority leader, I don’t think there’s any question about that. I think moving forward after the 2018 election cycle, who knows what exactly is going to happen? I think that the most important thing for Democrats is that we be competitive again in areas that we haven’t been in a long time,” said Veasey during an appearance on WFAA-TV’s Inside Texas Politics this morning.
When pressed on whether Pelosi, 77, could still help deliver wins for the party, Veasey added: “You’d never want to count her out. She is very good, very smart, very good on fundraising. But again, after the 2018 election cycle, I think that everyone is going to sit down, take a breath, see how we did, and go from there.”
Last month, Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez would not directly answer whether Pelosi should step away from her leadership position.
Statewide, Veasey said the Democrats first need to build a bench of candidates before the party can become competitive again. Democrats have yet to field a serious candidate for governor.
“It’s been tough for us the last several cycles. Since 1994, it’s been tough for Democrats. We definitely need to start winning again. We have a great [U.S.] Senate candidate in [Congressman] Beto O’Rourke but I think that once we start putting forward some good candidates and start building that bench, start rebuilding that base, we’re going to start being competitive statewide again,” Veasey told WFAA.
The Fort Worth Democrat blasted President Trump’s failures to deliver any legislative accomplishment despite having majority control of both the House and Senate.
“He’s made a lot of promises. He’s not keeping any of them. He promised an infrastructure bill. No infrastructure bill. [He] said there’s going to be a big focus on bringing jobs back to this country. That’s not happening. There are a lot of promises that he has made that he cannot keep,” said Veasey.
But the stock market is at record highs and the unemployment rate has fallen to 4.3%, according to data released on Friday. Public opinion polls might not like the president but the market likes him and that benefits everyone with a 401(k) retirement account.
“It looks like President Obama left President Trump with a pretty good economy. I’m very happy about that. I want the economy to do well whomever the president happens to be.”
Watch the full interview below:
