Delaware Sen. Chris Coons (D.) said Thursday that there has to be room for moderates on regulatory reform within the Democratic Party.
The Delaware Democrat made the comment in response to a question by Bloomberg TV's Kevin Cirilli.
"Do you think there's room in the Democratic Party for there to be folks who are more centrist on the issue for regulatory reform?" he asked.
Cirrilli was referring to a bill that passed the Senate with 17 Democratic votes that will roll back Dodd-Frank regulations on banks with assets up to $250 billion.
"There has to be," Coons said.
"Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota for example, one of the early supporters of this bill, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, these are folks who, if they're not allowed to be part of the Democratic caucus, then there's no chance we're going to be in the majority again," Coons argued.
Heitkamp and Donnelly serve in states where Donald Trump handily beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Coons said this particular issue should not divide Democrats.
"And I think what should unite the Democratic caucus is our opposition to President Trump's agenda and our decision that we want to work together to become the majority. If that's not the case, we're not going to be in a majority again," he said.
However, there has already been some intraparty fighting among Democrats on the issue.
In a phone interview with the Atlantic, Heitkamp said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) was misleading the public about the bill and exposing a divide among Democrats from more urban and suburban areas.
"She doesn't live where I live," Heitkamp said. "I think it's really unfortunate that she has misled people regarding this bill."
Warren was critical of fellow Democrats in her first post-vote tweets, while Sanders, the independent, chose to denounce only the Republicans: pic.twitter.com/zLBLhtiBmt
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 14, 2018
Meanwhile, Warren has tweeted several times where she critized Democrats for supporting the deregulation and admitted her relentlessness on the issue "doesn't make me the most popular kid on the block."