BARNEY FRANK

Resistance to the potential renomination of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell intensified this week, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren becoming the first senator to publicly oppose Powell and many progressive groups pushing for some alternative leader at the Fed.

Ex-congressman predicts Democrats will unite to pass spending bills because 'it's popular' and failure would be 'very bad'

The act of governing seemed to happen at the speed of presidential tweets when Donald Trump was in the White House.

Barney Frank, a former leading House Democrat, told CNBC on Friday that former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg has too much baggage to win the Democratic primary. Bloomberg, founder of the Bloomberg media company, announced his presidential bid on Sunday. "If you were to measure negatives, he would have by far the biggest negative," Frank said in a "Squawk Box" interview. Bloomberg has the highest unfavorability rating, 25%, of any Democratic candidate among among primary voters, according to a Morning Consult/Politico poll from Nov. 10. "I think Bloomberg is going to be a factor in this race, no doubt about it," Chen added.

As he prepared to retire in 2011, liberal Rep. Barney Frank reiterated a longstanding political warning: gun control is a "great loser" for many fellow Democrats. The 2010 House Republican wave had just wiped out Democrats in 51 rural House districts the places most resistant to restrictions on gun ownership. By contrast, Republicans increasingly rely on blue-collar whites who see gun restrictions as hostile incursions on the culture of their communities. In 1993, when President Bill Clinton won passage of mandatory background checks through the Brady Bill, one-third of minority Republicans voted yes while one-fourth of majority Democrats voted no. This February, when the House passed strengthened background check legislation, just two of 235 Democrats voted no.