Politics

Cummings Responds To Emanuel: ‘I Don’t Have Time To Chill’

(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Kerry Picket Political Reporter
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BALTIMORE — Thanks, but no thanks. Democrats ignored advice from Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to “take a chill pill” and turned up the heat instead.

“I’m not familiar with the statement, but I don’t have time to chill. Life is too short,” Maryland Democrat Rep. Elijah Cummings told The Daily Caller Wednesday at the Democratic House Issues Conference.

At an event at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business in California, Emanuel urged Democrats to understand they will not retake power in 2018.

“It ain’t gonna happen in 2018,” the former Democratic congressman said Monday, The Chicago Tribune reported. “Take a chill pill, man. You gotta be in this for the long haul.”

Emanuel said that for Democrats to win again, they should run moderate candidates — like military veterans, business figures, athletes and law enforcement officials — in Republican districts.

He claimed Democrats lose when they rely on “moral victory speeches.”

“I can’t stand them. I’ve never lost an election. It’s about winning, because if you win you then have the power to go do what has to get done,” said Emanuel.

House Democrats appeared to wave off Emanuel’s advice at their Issues Conference, focusing more on hitting back at President Trump and Republicans in Congress.

Lower chamber Democratic leaders cheered on Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren for violating a floor rule on insulting fellow members and excoriated Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Attorney General.

“I remind you in part of the speech last night there was a reference to Sen. Kennedy who called the actions of Sessions — Judge Sessions at the time — disgraceful,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said.

She claimed that since a man had said those words there were no repercussions for him. However, Sessions was not a member of the Senate at the time Kennedy made that remark, so the rule was not applicable.

 Cummings also slammed House Speaker Paul Ryan for not bringing a bill to the floor that would “address the issue of the “gutting the Voting Rights Act,” Cummings said.

“Everybody applauds him,” he said of Ryan. “‘He’s a great guy.’ Well, when you tell me that I cannot control my destiny and shape my destiny or my children’s destiny by being able to vote, I don’t know if you’re a friend. I’m being serious.”

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer told reporters, “We are less safe today in America than we were four months ago. Our allies trust us less. The American people have less confidence of what our direction will be from day to day perhaps from hour to hour. We are dissing our allies — Australia Mexico other.”

He added, “We are in fact retreat around the world from what is absolutely essential for global security and that is the full engagement of the United States of America.”

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