Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean praised the youth movement in the Democratic party and called out Republicans for “getting older and whiter,” in an interview published Wednesday by Yahoo News.

“Young people are taking over the Democratic Party, and that’s a very good thing,” the former Vermont governor and one-time presidential hopeful said.

“There’s a huge grassroots movement in this country run by people who are mostly under 35,” Dean said. “And they basically did all of the organization.”

{mosads}Dean contrasted the Democratic Party’s midterms gains to the Republican’s new lawmakers.

“Republicans, I think, are going to have a terrible time because they’re getting older and whiter,” he said. “And that’s not the direction the country’s going in.”

Dean also said that the Democrats still have a long way to go to make up for “neglect and bad leadership” after dropping the ball on tech following former President Obama’s 2008 victory.

“The DNC fell apart — eight years of neglect and bad leadership,” Dean said. “And the Republicans got smart. Republicans may not be interested in democracy, but they’re not stupid. What they did was jump over us.”

“We’re way behind. Our tech is behind,” he continued.

“There was a lot of infighting. The states had to fend for themselves. They developed their own way of doing things. And that just doesn’t really work. You really do need a centralized database. So while we’ve done everything right because young people have come in and taken over the functions from outside, we don’t have the tech thing down yet.”

Dean also stressed that he hoped for a presidential candidate under the age of 55 in 2020, citing Sens. Chris Murphy (Conn.), Kamala Harris (Calif.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) and Cory Booker (N.J.), Reps. Eric Swalwell (Calif.) and Seth Moulton (Mass.), and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti as possible candidates.

“I don’t think we should try to be like Donald Trump in order to beat Donald Trump,” he added. “I think we need to continue to use our brains and sense fairness.”

“The Republican Party has become Trump’s party. And I don’t respect Trump,” Dean told Yahoo. “I don’t think he has any kind of moral constituency. And I think that’s important for raising children.”