Democrats Delay Vote for House Leadership; Interview with Rep. Tim Ryan
SCIUTTO: Welcome back to THE LEAD. Today, House Democrats decided to delay their vote for new leadership for another two weeks. The decision comes in the wake of last week's shellacking. And it's a move that could spell the end of an era for longtime House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who has been at the helm of House Democrats for nearly 14 years now. Let's go to CNN's Jeff Zeleny. He's live on Capitol Hill. So, Jeff, postponing this vote really does signal some distress among House Democrats?</s>JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, it signals absolute concern across the Democratic Party, starting with the House of Representatives. Now, so far, there has not been a center of gravity around any one person to run against her. But all that could change in 15 days.</s>ZELENY (voice-over): One week later, President Obama is still talking about bruising lessons learned from the election.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is this mismatch, I think, between frustration and anger. Perhaps the view of the American people was, was that you just need to shake things up.</s>ZELENY: And shake things up, voters did. Now the Democratic Party is facing a shakeup of its own, as outgoing Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid takes forceful aim at Donald Trump.</s>SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MINORITY LEADER: Well, thanks, everybody, for being here.</s>ZELENY: The Democratic rank-and-file is restless. Today, House Democrats voted to delay the election of its leaders, a warning shot to Nancy Pelosi that she may face a challenge of her own. She walked into a closed-door meeting today confident of keeping her title as the Democratic leader.</s>QUESTION: Madam Leader, do you expect a challenge to your leadership today?</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: No.</s>ZELENY: Her effort to hold a quick election failed. Challengers now have two weeks to step forward. She walked away quickly, saying she doesn't own the stinging Democratic defeat.</s>QUESTION: You got beat pretty badly here. And this speaks of leadership.</s>PELOSI: Well, that speaks to the presidential race more than our race.</s>ZELENY: The Democratic Party is demoralized, decimated and in disarray. It's seeking new direction at the DNC and beyond. The place to start rebuilding is on Capitol Hill where young Rust Belt lawmakers say the party must increase its appeal to working-class voters. Pennsylvania Congressman Brendan Boyle said his state should not have been such an easy win for Trump.</s>REP. BRENDAN BOYLE (D), PENNSYLVANIA: Our party needs to do a much, much better job of reaching out and representing blue-collar and working-class voters. And for me, this election should be the final wakeup call that we get.</s>ZELENY: The Democrats' finger-pointing is giving way to soul- searching and who should be the face of the party.</s>REP. G.K. BUTTERFIELD (D), NORTH CAROLINA: We just got a shellacking. We just got a shellacking last Tuesday. We got an unexpected defeat. And we have got to recalibrate and decide how we go forward. It's just like death. There are different stages of grief that you go through.</s>ZELENY: Pelosi still enjoys strong support from many fellow Democrats. But Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan is considering mounting a challenge, saying it's time for a new direction.</s>REP. TIM RYAN (D), OHIO: This is not about in -- the past election, in my mind. This is about the next election, and what do the leaders look like, what does the message sound like, in order for us to pick up the seats that we need to pick up to get back in the majority.</s>ZELENY: And, Jim, the thing you hear again and again talking to so many lawmakers up here today is geography. The party needs to look inside the center of the country here, not just on the West Coast or East Coast here, for the next leader, many people say. That's why some are turning to Tim Ryan as a possible candidate for the House Democratic majority -- Jim.</s>SCIUTTO: Jeff Zeleny on the Hill, thanks very much. You heard there from Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan. And he joins us now live. Congressman Ryan, thanks very much for taking the time. You just said there, our viewers heard, that it is time for a new direction in the Democratic Party. You have not ruled out running against Pelosi to lead House Democrats. You have colleagues that are pushing you to run. Does new direction for the party mean new leadership?</s>RYAN: Well, it means a big conversation around where we need to go and who needs to be that messenger. I mean, we have a situation now, which I agree with what Nancy Pelosi said. I don't blame her for this election. The question is moving forward. We have to go into red states. We have to go into red congressional districts. We have to talk to blue-collar workers. We need blue-collar workers to vote blue. And in order to do that, we need to have the message and the messengers to be able to connect with them to pull them back into the Democratic camp.</s>SCIUTTO: Are you the messenger, Congressman Ryan, or is it Nancy Pelosi?</s>RYAN: Well, I don't know if I am or someone else is. But that's what this whole conversation is all about. My goal was to get this moved so that we can have a family discussion. And like many families who need to have a pretty important discussion, we tend to put it off, sometimes days, sometimes weeks. We have to have that tough discussion now and figure out what's going to position us to take the House of Representatives back. We have an opportunity here. Now, as much grief as there is, there is also opportunity. What's America 2.0? What's it look like? And how do we get there and how do we position the Democratic Party to help us to get there? And then when you look at the Republicans controlling the presidency, the House and Senate, they are going to repeal the health care bill, they're going to privatize Medicare, they're going to gut Medicaid. Many red congressional districts in many red states have people in them that benefit from these programs. So, as they're repealing these programs and taking these benefits away, we need someone who can go there and make not only that argument that we need to stand up for some of these programs that they benefit from, but also that we're going to here for blue-collar workers to get good-paying jobs back in some of these communities.</s>SCIUTTO: Before we get to the agenda, it just sounds like it's clear you're not ruling out challenging Pelosi for the leadership.</s>RYAN: I am not. And I don't think anyone else is. I think there are a lot of people having conversations right now.</s>SCIUTTO: So, let's talk about the agenda then. You listed a number of things that you expect the GOP to push now, repealing Obamacare being one of them. Are there things that you can work, that Democrats can work together with Republicans on? Do you see room for compromise?</s>RYAN: I would hope there would be a couple things. I think, when you talk about what Donald Trump said during the campaign, draining the swamp, let's do it. Let's do it right now. Let's move to publicly financing campaigns or campaign finance reform. That's how you drain the swamp here in Washington, D.C. You get the money out. I hope we can work with him on that. Rebuilding the country. He talks about a big transportation bill. Let's go. Let's do it. Let's get our and building and construction trade people back to work. Let's have buy-American provisions in there, so it's American-made steel and American-made concrete. I think those are two big things that we can do together right out of the gate to let the American people know we want to find opportunities to work together. But then if you try to repeal the health care bill, we are going to fight you. You try to privatize Medicare, we are going to fight you. You try to gut some of these social programs, we are going to fight you every step of the way.</s>SCIUTTO: Final question for you. More than 100 House Democrats have signed a letter urging Trump to rescind his appointment of Steve Bannon. Will you and your colleagues refuse to work with Steve Bannon in his role?</s>RYAN: I signed that letter myself. I think it's appalling that we would have someone that is either or has very close ties to white supremacist groups. I represent a lot of working-class African-American folks in my congressional district. I am appalled that this man would somehow make his way into the White House. And I think it's disgusting that the president-elect would appoint somebody like that. We need to move in another direction. I mean, regardless of what happened in this election, we should be an America that welcomes everybody. And that means immigrants and poor and black and brown and gay and straight. This is America. And we should not put somebody at such a high position that's going to be advising the president of the United States, not the president of a union, not the president of the rotary club The president of the United States has someone with deep ties to these groups and has promoted these groups over the past few months. It's disgusting. And I think it is going to be very, very difficult for us to work with President Trump if he's pushing this guy out front to be his top adviser.</s>SCIUTTO: Congressman Tim Ryan, thanks very much.</s>RYAN: Thank you.</s>SCIUTTO: A look at the four men who could lead Trump's national security team and why there are already big concerns about one candidate in particular.