Rep.: Aide’s tweet was ‘divisive’

Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez scolded her ex-chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti for comparing some of her centrist colleagues to racist Dixiecrats, calling his comments “divisive” and revealing she gave him a good talking to after the fact.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily News at her district office in Jackson Heights, Queens, on Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez said Chakrabarti’s recent resignation had nothing to do with his June 27 tweet comparing members of the moderate Blue Dog Coalition to “Southern Democrats” in the early 20th century who opposed desegregation efforts.

However, for the first time, Ocasio-Cortez distanced herself from Chakrabarti’s controversial post.

“I think it was divisive,” she said, adding, “I believe in criticizing stances, but I don’t believe in specifically targeting members.”

Chakrabarti’s tweet took aim at the Blue Dogs for voting in favor of a $4.6 billion emergency border funding bill that didn’t include stricter conditions on the way the Trump administration is detaining migrant children.

“They certainly seem hellbent to do to black and brown people today what the old Southern Democrats did in the ’40s,” Chakrabarti fumed in the since-deleted post.

Ocasio-Cortez said there was an “internal conversation” in her office after the tweet.

“We’ve corrected it,” she said. “He immediately took the tweet down.”

Chakrabarti abruptly resigned from his senior position in Ocasio-Cortez’s office last week to join New Consensus, a progressive climate change group that promotes the congresswoman’s signature “Green New Deal.”

Ocasio-Cortez said that move was long in the making.

“We had been discussing this transition before that whole incident happened,” she said, referring to the June 27 tweet.