Rep. Tim Ryan, who is challenging House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for her leadership position, said Monday he wonders how many more seats Democrats have to lose in the House before his party decides to make changes.
"How bad does it have to get?" the Ohio Democrat said Monday on Fox News. "There's a lot of working class people that are in congressional districts like mine that are black, white, brown, gay, straight that want economic opportunity and they don't see the Democratic Party as the party getting it to them."
Ryan said he does believe there is "appetite for change" in the Democratic caucus, even though Pelosi, D-Calif., has claimed she has two-thirds of House Democrats on her side.
"I think people are saying, look, maybe if there is a third of the voters in our caucus, it's probably the third in the closest election in our entire caucus," said Ryan. "I think that says something. But the question really is, how bad does it have to get? We lost 68 seats since 2010. We have the lowest majority or the lowest number in our caucus since 1929."
The Democratic caucus, said Ryan, is not tapping into its talent, and also its lawmakers are not talking about the issues voters care about.
"We talk about minimum wage, but people don't want a minimum wage," said Ryan. "I am for an increase in the minimum wage. People want a middle class job and have a solid pension, to be able to go on vacation, and then also have the work-life balance to where they're not working 80 hours a week to make ends meet."
Ryan said he's also ready to negotiate with the Trump administration, depending on the issues, that is.
"If Donald Trump is going to defund Planned Parenthood, privatize Medicare, simply cut taxes for the top one percent, and throw people off their healthcare, he's going to be in a street fight with the kid from the Youngstown area," said Ryan.
But when it comes to Trump's call for infrastructure work that will depend if his plans are serious ones, as what he's been reading is "it may be gimmicky."
"I haven't seen the details," said Ryan. "I don't want to comment too much. If we're going to get working class people back to work, building things, moving and making America the advanced manufacturing capital of the world, where we're exporting things and people are making things and we can drive those jobs to coal country and places like Youngstown, Ohio, we're going to talk and make that happen. If he doesn't, if he goes down another direction, he's going to have a fight on his hands."