Former President Barack Obama has given a speech to House Democrats nervous about losing power, telling them to stop whining about things they “can’t change.”
Obama was the featured keynote speaker during the House Democrats virtual messaging summit Thursday.
And according to multiple reports, he delivered some tough medicine.
Just a few months ago, Democrats were riding high with majorities in Congress and Joe Biden in the White House.
However, the fortunes have turned for Democratic Party in the past year.
Obama told the shellshocked House Democrats to stop whining.
It “doesn’t help to whine about the stuff you can’t change,” Obama said.
He told them to “take the wins you can get.”
He went on to remind the party that he fought for the public option to be included in the 2010 Affordable Care Act, but accepted reality and dropped it when it was clear it was not going to pass.
“Democrats have a tendency to complain about what we didn’t get done rather than talking about what we did get done,” Obama said on the call.
“If we can get some stuff done, some major domestic initiative, some progress on climate, there will come a point where you decide if you are getting nothing or getting that,” he added.
From CBS:
Obama’s message to Democrats comes as Republicans make a push to take back the majority in the midterm elections, amid Mr. Biden’s falling approval ratings: his Build Back Better social spending agenda and broad voting rights bills do not appear to have a path forward right now, and soaring inflation is hitting Americans hard, despite other positive economic indicators.
From The Daily Mail:
The former president’s nudge comes after Biden’s landmark $1.7 trillion social and climate spending bill, the Build Back Better Act, was tabled after Sen. Joe Manchin gave it a hard ‘no.’
Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer promised at the time to ‘vote on a revised version of the House-passed Build Back Better Act — and we will keep voting on it until we get something done.’
Obama’s appeal to the Democrats came after top Senators warned colleagues that the party wasn’t focused on the issues Americans care about – such as the economy – and called for action to avoid a disaster in the midterms.
A new CNN poll shows that voters are more concerned about economic issues than they have been in two decades.
A majority of voters, 59%, said the economy will be extremely important to their congressional vote in the midterm elections, while 55% said the same of inflation, and 49% on taxes.
