House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Blamed for Disarray in the Democratic Party
LEMON: House minority leader Nancy Pelosi has a popularity problem. But is she really to blame for the disarray in the Democratic Party or is she a scapegoat? Let's discuss now. CNN political commentators Bakari Sellers, Van Jones and Nina Turner. Hello, good evening to all of you. Bakari, you first. I'm sure you guys saw this. Look at it. Good evening, brother. I love that. Last night I had Representative Tim Ryan on and this is what he told me.</s>LEMON: You think Nancy Pelosi is more toxic than Donald Trump?</s>RE. TIM RYAN (D), OHIO: You know what the honest answer is in some areas of the country yes, she is. That's the honest answer.</s>LEMON: Why so?</s>RYAN: I just think first as unfair as it is there have been a lot of people that have spent a lot of money running negative ads against her. And I think that in certain areas like in some of these special election districts, it doesn't benefit our candidates to be tied to her.</s>LEMON: Bakari, is that accurate?</s>BAKARI SELLERS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: No, I don't think it's accurate. And I don't think Tim Ryan is the answer by any stretch.</s>LEMON: You think he is a hater a little bit?</s>SELLERS: I mean, regardless of whether or not he is a hater. I just - I think that it's very difficult to blame Nancy Pelosi for losses the Democrats had in Kansas, Montana, South Carolina and Georgia. The fact is that we need to win 24 seats to take back the House and there are 71 seats that are bluer than is in Georgia's sixth. And even in South Carolina, we made up a lot of ground, Don. So I do believe that we are - I don't want throw the baby out with the bath water. However, I think the answer is nuance because I do think that we have a leadership crisis, that we have messaging crisis in the Democratic Party and that our leadership, frankly is steal. Whether or not you are talking about Nancy Pelosi or Bernie Sanders, whether or not you are talking about Joe Biden or Chuck Schumer, I think we need to revamp our leadership because it's very hard to be a party for change when you don't have change at the top, when it looks like the status quo. And that is my concern.</s>LEMON: But listen. Aren't you guys saying the same thing?</s>SELLERS: I don't believe we are saying the same thing because I think he is castigating and throwing blame. I mean, people forget about all the victories that Nancy Pelosi has and they want to back the bus up over Nancy Pelosi and I refuse to let that happen.</s>LEMON: I have to say I saw Nancy. I just happened to run into her in an event here in New York City tonight. And just for a second she said -- sort of said the same thing to me that people forget all of -- .</s>SELLERS: You would not have the affordable care act right now without the strength of Nancy and many others, but particularly without the strength of Nancy Pelosi.</s>LEMON: Nina, what do you think of that?</s>NINA TURNER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, Don, look. NBA draft was tonight and we should take a message from that. The teams that were losing wanted to draft players to help them win and it is just as simple as that. And if the NBA can do that every year, they don't wait every four years, they don't wait every decade, they assess every year. And getting new players on the field doesn't take away from what players have done in the past or legacy players. But what it does say that the NBA can do that just to win a trophy. We as Democrats have to do a real assessment, a real autopsy and to determine whether or not we are going to start to win so that we can push policies that really help the American people. I mean, we got lot more than trophies on the line here. We got Medicare for all, social justice, environment justice, whole bunch of stuff is on the line for every day working Americans in this country. So we got to do something different and we got to do better and not having the willingness to assess that and have an honest conversation about that and then to do something differently that gets us that. Einstein defined it, it's called insanity.</s>LEMON: OK. I have to ask you, Van. You worked in the Obama administration. So my question to you is because now people are saying that the Republican Party is the Trump party. There is probably lots of blame to go around. But did -- the Obama coalition that was built was built around President Obama and not necessarily around Democrats. Was there a false sense of security among Democrats and did the Obama folks leave any oxygen in the room for anybody else?</s>VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that's a complicated answer -- question. I mean to say couple of things. First of all, with regard to Nancy Pelosi, we have a broken Democratic Party but one of the few things in the party that works well is Nancy Pelosi. Her job is to raise money and keep the Democrats together in the House and she has been doing that. I don't think she is the problem with the party. There is about a thousand problems, I wouldn't put her even on the list.</s>LEMON: So what's the problem?</s>JONES: Everything that Bakari just talked about is price of the messaging and leadership is not just about one person. She is actually - she is actually doing - listen, technically on the books, you heard by Nina, she's actually doing her job well. But there are a bunch of other jobs that not being done well. And I think there's actually a consultant class of people who are incompetent, who are tone deaf who make a ton of money, who are in the way. And so then as long as they are there, as long as you have this blanket or with the party sucking up money, giving bad ideas and data dummies that, you know, put up huge operations around computing and that kind of stuff and still can't tell you where to go and what to do, that's a much bigger problem. And so, with regard to your question around the Obama years, I think that the party got very happy and very lazy having such an extraordinary figure at the top and did not pay attention to the thousand plus people who lost their positions throughout the country and that is a problem. We have to turn our attention to now. But to me it is bazar that out of all people in the party is pick on Nancy Pelosi when she has threaten the one person doing her job.</s>LEMON: Go ahead, Bakari.</s>SELLERS: No. And this Nancy Pelosi discussion is phenomenal because I don't think it's not a question about the individual and whether she does her job well. I think we have to change the face of the Democratic Party because due to this - let's look at this Barack Obama conversation. Democrats do well when we have the JFK's and we have the Bill Clintons, and when we have the Barack Obamas.</s>SELLERS: The historic figures. But even more importantly, I don't want to mince any words. This is still Barack Obama's party. I mean, we can talk about Joe Biden, we can talk about Elizabeth Warren, we can have a people's march and talk about Bernie Sanders. But this is Barack Obama's party. And the coalition that Barack Obama has been the core of the Democratic Party for a very long period of time. That core is African American women. That is how we win. We lost this election in 2016 because African-American voters -- the turnout of African-American voters compared to 2008 and 2012, went down in every single swing state. In Georgia six African-American voters didn't turn out. In South Carolina five, African-American voters did not turn out. And so we need to make sure that not only are we getting more progressive, not only are we quoting white working class voters. But we also need to make sure we are not taking the backbone of our party for granted and giving them a full --.</s>LEMON: So to that, Van, you say -- if it's the Obama coalition - Nina, I'm going to let you get in. Van, so that Obama coalition didn't turn out. And the other side ran against Nancy Pelosi. They didn't run against President Obama -- Nina.</s>TURNER: And that doesn't mean -- I don't think there's a disagreement among the three of us. I don't personally believe that leader Pelosi should be thrown under the bus. What I'm saying about the NBA analogy is this, is that fresh doesn't always mean young but it just means at a certain point, a certain time people have to make a different play and that is what we are facing. That's what the Democratic Party is facing. And the point about African-American women being the backbone of the Democratic Party, you dog right African-American women although what have African-American women gotten for themselves and for their families? I mean, hey, in this country, there has never been an African-American woman serve as governor in the history of this country and Democrats should be the first ones doing that. So when you have people like leader Stacey Abrams of Georgia pushing it, you know, trying to be that, not just the nominee but to win that. You know, when is the Democratic Party actually going to do something for this loyalist part of the base? They haven't done a dog gone thing for African-American women. People have to come out to vote and I think sometimes we talk about this as if the voters owe the elected officials something. And it is the other way around. People have to earn that vote every single time.</s>LEMON: I have got to run. Thank you. I appreciate it. When we come back, how Bill Cosby plans to educate young people about sexual assault just one week after he dodged assault charges himself.