Democratic strategist James Carville had some advice for the Democrats on how to beat Republican President Donald Trump.
Carville spoke with MSNBC’s Katie Phang for a segment Friday and preached patience as the party finds itself not in control of the White House, Senate or House for the first time in six years.
‘We have to learn as Democrats, just let himself punch himself out,’ Carville advised.
The ‘Ragin’ Cajun’ suggested that the party needed to be like the late boxer Muhammad Ali and ‘keep bopping and weaving, bopping and weaving.’
‘And then, in due course, you’re going to be able to come in,’ he said.
Carville pointed to some of the things Trump has talked about since taking office: ‘Greenland, Canada, canal zone, Delta Smelt, you name it.’
In the past few weeks, Trump has ridiculously proposed taking over Greenland from Denmark, making Canada the 51st state and bringing the Panama Canal Zone back under U.S. control.
He’s also falsely blamed efforts to conserve the Delta smelt, an endangered fish, for the reason why Los Angeles had so much trouble fighting the recent wildfires in the area.
Carville previously said that Democrats lost the 2024 election by not having strong enough messaging on the economy.
He pushed that Trump would eventually have to make good on his campaign promises to decrease food and energy prices.
‘But the big thing is, the number one problem, the biggest political problem in his generation is he would get food prices down,’ Carville said.
‘And he keeps distracting us and we keep getting distracted but we’ll come back in and we’ll all straddle this target and get it in writing before long, I think,’ the longtime Democratic strategist added.
Carville said Democrats needed to be looking toward the 2026 midterms – and especially focus on the House, which would be more gettable than the U.S. Senate.
‘Understand, they have a one or two vote majority in the House. We can easily do that,’ he said. ‘We have an objective to work toward.’
Democrats flipped the House to their control in 2018 – after two years of the first Trump term.
The party then won back the White House in 2020 and flipped the Senate blue in early 2021 – before losing all of them again after the 2024 elections.
‘I’m as distraught as you are, or anybody watching this network right now about the results or where we are in this country,’ Carville admitted to Phang.
Carville has produced headlines lately due to his very candid takes on the future of the Democratic Party.
On his Politics War Room podcast last week, Carville recommended to former President Joe Biden to ‘go to your condo in Rehoboth and stay there.’
‘What he’s done to himself is, no one wants to hear from this guy anymore. OK?’ Carville said.
The longtime Democratic strategist said that the outgoing president ‘did it to himself’ by thinking he could successfully run for a second term – before dropping out in late July.
Carville compared Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, to the party’s ‘9th best quarterback’ and said Biden gave her no time to be successful.
He called Biden’s fall ‘unbelievably stunning.’
‘It’s one of the most tragic stories in American politics in my lifetime,’ Carville noted. ‘The central character is actually a good guy – who did it to himself.’