Democratic senator says party must start ‘accepting the reality that Trump won’

With days to go before President-elect Donald Trump officially enters office, congressional Democrats are announcing how they are coming to terms with four years of Republican leadership in the White House.

“It’s just accepting the reality that Trump won. And us just saying he’s a chaotic guy goes nowhere,” Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., told Semafor in an interview.  That’s just baked into people’s consciousness. The fact is, people want change. So that means we have to be willing to change as well.”

“There’ll be plenty of opportunities for us to fight on matters of real principle, where our argument is that that’s going to make life harder and more expensive for people,” Welch told the outlet. “But not just because we don’t like Trump.”

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Some Democrats, like Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper, are signaling that they are able to find some points of agreement with Republicans in order to advance policy goals. 

“Within that, there’s a million things that need to be decided. So I’d be happy to try and find compromises wherever possible,” Hickenlooper told Semafor. 

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But many congressional Democrats are not as conciliatory about Trump and Republicans’ greater influence in Washington, D.C. “We’ve seen the movie… eight years ago. It was all a surprise to us,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told Semafor. “Now we know the basic playbook.”

“On a given day, I’m doing both things: Trying to get things passed, and also trying to stop bad things from happening,” Kaine said of how his job has changed following the ascension of Republicans to the Senate and other halls of power.

Other Democrats in Congress have called on fellow members of their party to look for ways to compromise with the incoming Trump administration. In a guest essay for The New York Times published on New Year’s Day, Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., said knee-jerk opposition to the Trump agenda by Democrats would be a “mistake.” 

“As a Democratic member of Congress, I know my party will be tempted to hold fast against Mr. Trump at every turn: uniting against his bills, blocking his nominees and grinding the machinery of the House and the Senate to a halt. That would be a mistake,” the congressman wrote.

Fox News’ Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.