House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) appeared on "Fox News Sunday" last weekend to discuss, among other things, her leadership role in Congress as calls for her to step down continue to come from some within her own party.
"I am a master legislator. I know the budget to the nth degree. I know the motivation of people. I respect the people who are in Congress," Pelosi told host Chris Wallace while defending her ability to lead the Democratic Party back to a majority in the House of Representatives.
"I feel very confident about the support I have in my caucus," Pelosi said.
Pelosi's statement came as some within her party have questioned whether she should remain as the top House Democrat.
Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) recently called Pelosi and the Democratic Party's brand "toxic." Ryan, 44, said it will be "very hard" for Democrats to take back control of the House in 2018 with Pelosi in charge and called for new leaders from a younger generation.
“It's going to be more challenging, certainly," Ryan said in June, according to Politico. "You see these commercials that tie these candidates to Leader Pelosi week in and week out in the last several months. That still moves the needle, you know?”
Ryan was referring to the four special elections this year in Montana, Georgia, South Carolina, and Kansas — all of which Democrats lost. The elections were held to replace Republican lawmakers whom President Donald Trump appointed to serve in his administration.
And Ryan isn't the only Democrat dissatisfied with Pelosi's leadership.
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) told CBS News late last month that it's "time for a change." Moulton predicted a "pretty significant uprising in the House Democratic Caucus" if new Democratic leadership isn't in place by the 2018 midterms.
"What we've got to do, not just for our party, but I think for so many American people, is start winning again," said Moulton, who is 38. "Start bringing some balance back to Washington and start winning with leadership that the American people can trust, not the old, tired Democratic partisan leadership, but really a new generation of leaders who are going to put the country first."
During the Fox News interview, Wallace pointed out that Pelosi is 77 years old, the same age as Rep. Jim Clyburn (S.C.), the assistant House minority leader. Rep. Steny Hoyer (Md.), the Democratic House Minority Whip, is 78.
Currently, Democrats control just 194 of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 48 seats in the Senate, and Democrats' numbers in state legislatures and governorships were decimated to record lows during President Barack Obama's eight years in office.
With these abysmal numbers, more Democrats are now coming to recognize that they need new blood. Among the Democrats saying this is Bryan Dean Wright, a former CIA officer and current Fox News opinion writer. Wright published a column on FoxNews.com Sunday titled, "I'm a Democrat but Nancy Pelosi is totally clueless about what Democrats need to do to win."
In the piece, he referred to Pelosi's interview with Wallace and her pitch for the Democrats' new branding effort, called "A Better Deal."
Pelosi's pitch calls for an increase in wages and incomes, lower prescription drug costs, more job training and more infrastructure growth.
But as Wallace pointed out, "none" of what "A Better Deal" proposes is actually new.
"We've been hearing it for years. We heard it from the Democrats and Hillary Clinton in 2016 and you lost," Wallace said.
Pelosi didn't dispute that fact, but she added that Americans are "going to hear it with more clarity."
Wright, however, wrote that it's going to take more than providing "more clarity" for Democrats to win in 2018.
"That doesn’t mean 'A Better Deal' is without merit, as Fox’s Chris Wallace noted. But clearly something was missing when Clinton made these same losing arguments. The American people were looking for something more. Something different," Wright said.
He went on to remind readers that Trump won the presidency by running to shake up Washington, D.C.
"To right the ship, Trump vowed to drain the swamp of America’s political losers and push through an agenda that would leave the country literally tired of winning. Said differently, Trump focused on the brokenness of Washington, D.C.," Wright wrote.
"And yet," he added, "despite the country’s hunger for fresh leadership, Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi (with 29 years in office) continue to appear on TV to promote the party’s reboot. Complete with Clinton’s losing proposals."
Wright slammed Pelosi for asserting that "I don't think people want a new direction," despite the very clear results in November.
"D.C. Democrats have thus placed the party in an intractable position: they have leaders who lack the credible voice to move the party forward, yet the leaders refuse to leave. For those Democrats outside the Beltway, this conundrum leaves them with two uncomfortable options: Accept the status quo, or fight back," Wright said.
The former CIA officer then cited a poll that found an overwhelming majority of Americans — 67 percent — view Democrats as out of touch.
Wright said that all of this requires Democrats to stage a "rebellion" against the status quo Democratic leaders in the nation's capital.
"If Pelosi and others like her won’t step down, the rebels must make it clear to America’s voters that the D.C. Democrats do not speak for them," Wright said. "Officials like Pelosi have become unresponsive and tone deaf, pushing failed schemes like 'A Better Deal' when what American voters want is better leadership."
"It’s time that Democrats give voters what they deserve," Wright said.
