Former Clinton advisor Mark Penn, the CEO of Stagwell, spoke to Tom Bevan of RealClearPolitics, where he laid out what he believes is the only strategy for the Democrats to come back to life in the age of President Donald Trump.

“I’ve never seen numbers like we’re getting now on the Democratic Party,” the former Clinton advisor said.

“All the moderates have said this party has to move to the center, but the left seems to be taking more of a dominant role in the party, and the ratings have just gone boom! In my poll, they were in the 30s, and in some polls, they were in the 20s. Normal favorable/unfavorable ratings for the Democratic Party are 45-51. I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.

Penn then gave advice to Democrats about what he believes they need to do to improve.

“Make up a list of things you really want and a list of things you’re willing to cooperate with. Are you willing to cooperate with closing the border, or was it all a ruse, and you’re really for an open border? Are you willing to cooperate with reducing the size of the government and the deficit? Do you have things you want, like climate change, inflation, helping working people, that you can put forth to do a compromise?,” Penn noted.

“I don’t see the left supporting that. They want to try to do what they did in 2016, which was to rip it all down. That’s not working. Trump is a lot smarter than he was in 2017,” he said.

“In presidential politics, you generally don’t see what’s coming. Nobody saw Donald Trump coming, nobody saw Barack Obama coming. Nobody saw Bill Clinton coming when he was Bill Clinton,” the former Clinton advisor said.

“If Trump ends badly, then I think the left is going to say, see, we told you,” Penn added.

“If Trump does a pretty good job, the party is going to have no chance whatsoever if it doesn’t figure out how to move to the center and get another Bill Clinton in,” he said.