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Former Maryland governor and DNC chair nominee Martin O’Malley didn’t mince words about the state of the Democratic Party following President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory last year.

The politician appeared on CNN Friday morning and admitted that his party was “badly battered” after Trump’s win and expressed his belief Democrats were defeated because they lost touch with the working class in America.

“What we failed to do was to connect to the biggest concerns that the hardest-working people in America had, and that was the fact that inflation, they felt, was going up faster than their paychecks,” he told network host Kasie Hunt.

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O’Malley pitched himself as the next DNC chair and someone who could bring change to the battered state of the party.

“The stunning losses that we‘ve had, the fact that our brand is so badly battered that the hardest working people in America lost sight of us – thought we were more for elites than we were for them – this requires a time of change, and I believe that I have the ability to be that change agent,” he said.

He continued, noting that his experience as governor and the chair of a national committee in the past makes him the best candidate for the position. 

“I am a turnaround – operational turnaround leader, probably the best in our party, which is why the president dispatched me to Social Security. Secondly, I‘ve actually chaired a national committee… And third and finally, I‘ve actually run for office. I have been elected,” he said.

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Hunt asked O’Malley if he agreed with Democratic strategist James Carville’s recent assessment that the party didn’t focus enough on economic problems.

In a New York Times guest essay on Thursday, Carville wrote, “We lost for one very simple reason: It was, it is and it always will be the economy, stupid. We have to begin 2025 with that truth as our political north star and not get distracted by anything else.”

O’Malley told Hunt he “totally” agrees with the former Clinton adviser’s point and mentioned that Carville gave him advice on running for chair.

The candidate added that the change required to become that party is to “return to our true selves because our party‘s very purpose for being is the economic security of every single American.”

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In an interview with The Hill published this week, an anonymous progressive strategist called out the party for abandoning the working class as well, particularly singling out former President Obama for making the party cater to elites. 

“I don’t know exactly when Democrats lost their comfort with populism, but I don’t think it was because Trump picked it up,” the strategist told the outlet, adding, “I think Trump picked it up because Democrats gave it up during the Obama years, when they started chasing Silicon Valley money, and Obama wanted to appeal to college-educated people who think populism is icky and uneducated.”