Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel warned Democrats to "take a chill pill" because they are not reclaiming national power anytime in the near future.
"It ain't gonna happen in 2018," Emanuel said at Stanford's Graduate School of Business in California, per the Chicago Tribune. "Take a chill pill, man. You gotta be in this for the long haul."
The newspaper noted he did not hold back in talking about his frustrations with fellow Democrats.
"Winning's everything," Emanuel said. "If you don't win, you can't make the public policy. I say that because it is hard for people in our party to accept that principle. Sometimes, you've just got to win, OK? Our party likes to be right, even if they lose."
"I don't go to moral victory speeches. I can't stand them. I've never lost an election. It's about winning, because if you win, you then have the power to go do what has to get done."
He said Democrats need to lay out a strategy to get back into power. He believes the party should put up moderate candidates such as veterans, football players, sheriffs, and business people in Republican districts. He said the party needs to exploit wedges within the GOP and fight attempts to redistrict Congress along partisan lines.
"Wherever there's a disagreement among Republicans, I'm for one of those disagreements," he said. "I'm all for it. The president is with Russia? I'm with John McCain and Lindsey Graham, I'm for NATO! Why? [It's a] wedge. Wedges have to be schisms – schisms have to be divides."
Emanuel and President Donald Trump have been involved in a war of words in recent weeks over violence in Chicago.
Asked recently if he wanted Trump to visit his city, Emanuel simply said, "No," WMAQ-TV in Chicago reported.
"What I would really like is the federal resources," he added.
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