Van Jones: Democrats Are Taking Trump ‘Way Too Lightly’

Thursday on CNN’s “New Day,” former Obama administration green job czar Van Jones, now a CNN political analyst, warned the Democratic Party against taking likely presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump too lightly.

Jones based it on the push change in the country.

“I think Democrats are taking [Trump] way too lightly,” Jones said. “I just don’t think Democrats understand that there’s a wave building for change and change of any kind, of any stripe. At this point I think Kermit the Frog could run.”

Jones focused on the Rust Belt region of the country and said his party should key in on that area and not take voters that have traditionally gone for Democrats for granted.

“A couple of things – first of all, the hammer blow will fall the hardest from Trump in the Rust Belt where Democrats have tended to take things for granted – Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, even Wisconsin – places that have Republican governors, either now or in the recent past that have had a lot of economic pain,” he continued. “The winners in globalization are like many of the folks who are watching this show. We get a chance to go to Wal-Mart, we get paid very much, we don’t even think about it. So the winners are diffuse and ungrateful. But the losers in globalization, who lost their jobs because of NAFTA are concentrated and they’re angry and they’re in the Rust Belt. If Donald Trump goes there, he can pick up votes. Democrats need to be in the Rust Belt right now trying to shore up African-American and working class white votes, pointing out if you have a CEO president like Trump, if you got a CEO governor in Michigan that gave you Flint, but if you don’t make those arguments and you lay back and think demographics are going to save you and gaffes are going to save you, you will be washed out to sea like all the Republicans have been so far.

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