Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, on Friday said the Democratic Party’s next presidential nominee "has to talk like a normal person."
"That is to me the most important thing. Normal doesn't mean that they have an effect that is identifiable Midwestern or Southern or some sort of regional — but this person is real. If you had them over for dinner, you could understand what the hell they were talking about," he told Politico.
"And so, I think we are looking for someone who can plausibly fit in as a human being all across the country. I don't know who that's going to be."
Schatz also agreed with Politico that President-elect Donald Trump sounded "like a normal person — the guy at the end of the bar."
On Democrats' failure to win the 2024 election, Schatz said President Joe Biden was to blame.
"I think that his departure enabled us to mitigate losses on the congressional side," Schatz told the outlet. "I think it would have been a world historic blowout had he not departed. But I also think we might have had a puncher’s chance had he announced his departure a year earlier."