Pelosi says Dems ‘have to be ready to throw a punch — for the children’ in 2020

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) previewed a tough presidential race in 2020 and said Democrats must be ready to respond to conservative attacks on their record. 

“This is going to be a tough election, because for them this is going to be about money. They’ll put up any amount of money to protect their investment of degrading the environment, and the rest, guns and all that,” she said at the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) summer meeting Friday.{mosads}

“So you have to be ready to take a punch. You got to be ready to take a punch. And therefore you have to be ready to throw a punch – for the children.”

At DNC summer meeting, Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicts 2020 will be a “tough election.”

“You have to be ready to take a punch,” she says. “And therefore you have to be ready to throw a punch—for the children.” https://t.co/JsAo4rT8TM pic.twitter.com/kFlfDBNIsq

— ABC News (@ABC) August 23, 2019

The comments come amid an internal debate within the Democratic Party over whether its ultimate presidential nominee should engage with President Trump in a verbal back-and-forth or whether they should ignore any personal barbs from the president. 

Trump and Republicans on Capitol Hill, as well as conservative outside groups, have started hammering the crowded Democratic primary field, trying to label the candidates as socialists, among other messages they hope will turn off swing voters.

Trump in 2016 wielded personal barbs against his Republican opponents to help clear the primary field and repeatedly went after Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s character in an effort to cast her as corrupt and dishonest.