Rep. Seth Moulton (D., Mass.) appeared Wednesday night on MSNBC with host Rachel Maddow to discuss the contested race for House minority leader, where he criticized Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) for the "disastrous" results under her leadership in the last few elections.
Hours earlier, Pelosi squashed Rep. Tim Ryan's (D., Ohio) challenge to unseat her as the top House Democrat, garnering 134 votes, about two-thirds of the Democratic Caucus, compared to Ryan's 63 votes.
Maddow asked Moulton what he thought about the results of the race on Wednesday.
"If you think about it, she's been in office for 13 years–as leader for 13 years where she's been able to gather the support of the members of the caucus. And Tim Ryan ran for two weeks. And in two weeks over Thanksgiving break he was able to gather the votes of a third of the caucus," Moulton said.
Moulton went on to say the status quo is not working and that the Democrats need to change their strategy.
"We're not going to win back the House in 2018 by continuing to do what we've done in the last several elections, which have been disastrous," Moulton said.
Maddow said Democrats will be facing challenging times when the incoming Donald Trump administration formally takes control because they will be in the minority and have to distinguish themselves.
"I think the world has changed. I think the American people know that, and that's why they're looking for new leadership. Clearly, our message didn't resonate during this campaign. Democrats lost across the country," Moulton said.
"We only gained six seats in the House, which was below even the lowest estimates for how we would do. About half of those are due to redistricting everywhere anyways. Our performance was terrible," Moulton added.