BICKER TWEET AOC fires barb after Pelosi’s social warning
It’s starting to get ugly between Nancy and AOC.
Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez lashed out at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for what she called racially charged “singling out” women of color representatives for criticism.
“The persistent singling out … it got to a point where it was just outright disrespectful,” Ocasio-Cortez told the Washington Post. “The explicit singling out of newly elected women of color.”
Pelosi responded Thursday by saying that what happened in a Democratic caucus meeting would stay there.
“How they’re interpreting and carrying it to another place is up to them,” Pelosi said at her weekly press conference. “But I’m not going to be discussing it any further.”
The two women were referring to a tense closeddoors meeting of the House Democratic caucus Wednesday during which Pelosi warned social mediafriendly young lawmakers not to tweet vitriol at colleagues.
The powerful Democratic boss started out by seeking to defend moderate Democrats, who felt they were under attack. Ocasio-Cortez said she “understood” that political instinct to protect the caucus. Many of the moderates represent Trump-friendly districts and face tricky reelection fights.
Pelosi irked the upstart lefty firebrand and others by repeatedly focusing on her and her progressive “squad” of four newly elected young women of color, even though one of the nastiest tweets came from Mark Pocan (DWis.), who is white.
She even warned them directly: “Don’t tweet.”
One of the AOC allies, Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), called Pelosi’s remarks “demoralizing.”
“I am worried about the signal that it sends to people I speak to and for, who sent me here with a mandate, and how it affects them,” Pressley told the Post.
Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), another ally, vowed in a tweet not to change her ways. And Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) told Politico that AOC’s pushback “resonates” with her as a woman of color.
Even though Pelosi portrayed herself as taking the high road Thursday, she continued her needling of AOC.
Seconds before asserting she was not going to talk about the feud, she essentially rehashed her critique of Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, who compared moderate Democrats to Dixiecrats.
“I addressed, at the request of my members, an offensive tweet that came out of one of the member’s offices that referenced our Blue Dogs and our New Dems essentially as segregationists,” Pelosi said, referencing a now-deleted tweet by Chakrabarti.
Pelosi was right in saying that the “squad” has few allies in the halls of Congress. But they are right to assert that they command a large following among Democratic activists, and the ability to reach a big chunk of Democratic voters on social media.