Tlaib: Pelosi Is Trying to Silence Me and AOC

Cortney O'Brien | July 08, 2019 1:00 PM

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) tried to explain why she didn't vote for the recent border crisis relief bill in an interview with Martha Raddatz on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. The legislation, which emerged from the Republican-led Senate, would provide $4.5 billion toward humanitarian aid and logistical support at the southern border. But Tlaib took issue with it.

"Three agents took me aside, away from my colleagues, and said more money isn't going to fix this, that they were not trained to separate children, that they don't want to separate children, a two-year-old away from his mother," she told Raddatz. "That's not what they were trained for. That's not what they signed up for in their service to our country."

In the same conversation, Tlaib took a few moments to denounce her own party leader, Nancy Pelosi, for failing to consider some Democratic amendments to the border bill. Those provisions, which would restrict how the White House could use those funds, were supported by other progressive freshmen like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN). AOC called Pelosi's cave an "abdication of power." and Tlaib argued that they had been effectively silenced.

"People like us — people of color — have been missing in the chamber," Tlaib said. "Honor the fact that we are there. That 650,000 people are represented by each and every one single of us. It is very disappointing that the speaker would ever try to diminish our voices in so many ways."