ROUGH HOUSE-ING
AOC claims Pelosi endangers 4 progs
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claimed on Thursday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was imperiling her safety and that of three other freshman female Democrats by targeting them for criticism.
“It’s singling out four individuals, and knowing the media environment that we’re operating in, knowing the amount of death threats that we get, knowing the amount of concentration of attention, I think it’s just worth asking why,” Ocasio-Cortez told CNN.
The Bronx-Queens Democrat’s explosive claim intensifies her intramural spat with Pelosi.
During a Democratic caucus meeting Wednesday, Pelosi warned Ocasio-Cortez and Reps. Rashida Tlabi (Mich.), IlIlhan Omar (Minn.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) to stop tweeting criticisms of other House Democrats.
And Pelosi (Calif.) stood her ground Thursday, insisting the rest of the caucus had her back after her rebuke of the four firebrand lefties dubbed “The Squad.”
“I’ve said what I’m going to say in the caucus. That’s where this is appropriate, and I said what I’m going to say in the caucus,” she told reporters, before elaborating anyway.
“They took offense because 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 new Southern Democrats essentially as segregationists,” Pelosi continued, referring to a since-deleted tweet by an Ocasio-Cortez staffer.
Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, had attacked Pelosi over the weekend, tweeting scathing criticism of the moderate Blue Dogs and calling them the “New Southern Democrats.”
“They certainly seem hell bent to do to black and brown people today what the old Southern Democrats did in the 40s,” he tweeted before deleting the post.
On Thursday, Pelosi said, “Our members took offense at that. I addressed that.
“What I said in the caucus yesterday had an overwhelming response from my members because they know what the facts are and what we’re responding to.”
Pelosi scolded the progressives in Wednesday’s closed-door caucus meeting, according to Politico.
“So, again, you got a complaint? You come and talk to me about it,” Pelosi had said.
“But do not tweet about our members and expect us to think that that is just OK.”
Speaking to The Washington Post later Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez called Pelosi’s remarks “outright disrespectful” for “singling out of newly elected women of color.”
But Rep. William Lacy Clay — a Congressional Black Caucus member who has backed AOC’s Green New Deal — blasted the freshman congresswoman on Thursday.
“How dare they try to play the race card at this point,” the Missouri Democrat fumed.
“It shows the weakness of their argument. It’s damaging to this party and the internal workings of the Democratic Party.”