Democrats need to talk less about Russia if they want to win in 2020: former DNC chair Ed Rendell

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Ed Rendell suggests Democrats should shift focus to legislating after release of Mueller report

Democrats now need to shift their focus away from Russia and the 2016 presidential election and spend more time “doing the business of the people” if they want to have a chance of defeating Trump in 2020, former DNC chairman Ed Rendell says.

The comments from the ex-governor of Pennsylvania on "America’s Newsroom" Monday come as his party is grappling with how to proceed following the release of a summary of findings from Robert Mueller’s investigation, which, Attorney General Bill Barr says, could not prove that Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 race.

“We have to get back to doing the business of the people,” Rendell said. “And that’s legislating on infrastructure, immigration, fixing the Affordable Care Act, things like that. That will be the key to whether we will be successful in 2020.”

Rendell added that it is important to note the summary released by Barr “did exonerate [Trump] on any evidence on collision, but it specifically said… it did not exonerate him on obstruction of justice.

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FILE - In this June 21, 2017, file photo, special counsel Robert Mueller departs after a meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

“That has to be looked at by people who are going to look at the report and decide what to do with it,” he added, further suggesting that “I wouldn’t if I were a Republican say that President Trump is out of the woods.

“This was just one of many, many different places that are investigating President Trump,” Rendell said.

But as for the Democratic Party, “we should continue to do investigations when appropriate but we should focus our attention now on legislating, on getting some things done,” Rendell believes.

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“The Democrats should not have made the statements that there was plenty of evidence of collusion,” he said. “There wasn’t – it was at the margins at best.

“Now we should put that behind us and focus on investigating other things that need investigation. But most important, our legislating,” he continued. “We need to pass out of the Democratic House an infrastructure bill to get people back to work to do something about the absolutely pathetic state of our infrastructure. Immigration, we should try to solve the immigration problem.”