PELOSI TRIES to downplay tensions with four rebellious lawmakers.
Differences few, she says after private talk with Ocasio-Cortez
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought to downplay recent tensions over policy and tactics between her and four female lawmakers after a private meeting Friday with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
“I don’t think we have that many differences,” Pelosi said when asked whether she and Ocasio-Cortez discussed their differences.
“I have meetings with members all the time,” Pelosi added as she walked away from reporters, saying she wished the journalists were more interested in meetings she has had recently on community health centers and conditions at migrant detention centers.
Pelosi said her conversation with the freshman lawmaker covered “a range of issues” relative to her committee assignments and that they did not discuss Ocasio-Cortez’s recent contention that Pelosi had been “singling out” the four lawmakers for criticism in a way that is “outright disrespectful.”
Ocasio-Cortez was not immediately available to reporters. Before the meeting, she had also sought to downplay tensions between Pelosi and Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.; and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.
In an interview earlier this month with The New York Times, Pelosi said that the four “didn’t have any following,” citing their lonely votes in late June against a Democratic-crafted bill to address the southern border crisis. She has also made other remarks dismissing the group and their far-left proposals on the environment and health care.
In an interview earlier this month with The Washington Post, Ocasio-Cortez voiced frustration with Pelosi.
“When these comments first started, I kind of thought that she was keeping the progressive flank at more of an arm’s distance to protect more moderate members, which I understood,” Ocasio-Cortez said at the time. “But the persistent singling out … it got to a point where it was just outright disrespectful … the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color.”
In the wake of President Donald Trump’s tweets last week suggesting the four lawmakers should “go back” to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” Democrats have rallied around them and strongly condemned Trump.
Three of the lawmakers were born in the United States, and Omar is a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Somalia.
All Democrats in the chamber voted last week for a resolution condemning Trump’s tweets. They were joined by four Republicans and one independent.
In an interview last week with CBS News, Ocasio-Cortez said there was not a “fundamental fracture” between Pelosi and the four lawmakers.
Omar, who was part of the joint interview, said, “I don’t feel a fracture.”