House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said Friday that Democrats who are not inspired by the party’s "Better Deal" economic message should "be inspired by the unity of it."
Pelosi was speaking at the Progressive Caucus Strategy Center Summit in Baltimore where she focused on economic issues and the importance of winning in 2018. She congratulated Democrats for their messaging on the "Better Deal" agenda, even though it has been panned in the media.
"I know you spent a good deal of time on message, and I want to say how proud I am of our House Republicans, who worked for months and months and months...to put together ‘a Better Deal,’" Pelosi said.
After thanking those who worked on it, Pelosi addressed the critics who say the party’s message is not inspiring, and she told them to "pay attention."
"I hope you pay attention, because people say, ‘oh a Better Deal, that’s not too romantic, I’m not too inspired by it’—you know, be inspired by the unity of it, that our members came together–House and Senate, by the way–on it" she said. "Be inspired by the fact that it is an economic message, and that is the fight that we have to win."
"All the things we care about, we can get done if we win the economic message," she added.
She credited grassroots groups for their "indispensable" work organizing against Republicans' attempted repeal of Obamacare.
Pelosi also drove home the point that the 2018 election is the most important one yet.
"This is the most crucial election," Pelosi said.
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said last year that the rollout of the "Better Deal" agenda was "terrible."
"It's so bland, it's so vanilla, it's so terrible," Scarborough said. "Democrats lost the unlosable race in 2016. The question now is, are they going to lose the unlosable midterm in 2018?"