Progressive darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) slammed Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for saying she believed AOC and her "squad" – Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) – were irrelevant because they voted against the House's border funding bill.
The so-called "squad" voted against the $4.6 billion emergency funding bill because they weren't happy with how moderate it was. Specifically, they took issue with not having further restrictions to protect illegal aliens currently in custody.
Pelosi's revelation came about during an interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. The Speaker candidly told Dowd the squad should have supporters "our bill," the moderate version of the House bill. It ended up successfully passing 230-195, mostly along party lines. The only exception was from the four progressive freshmen.
“All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” Pelosi said, clearly referencing Ocasio-Cortez's frequent use of social media. “But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”
AOC jumped on Twitter and hit back at the Speaker, saying she disagreed with Democrats wanting to "blindly trust the Trump admin."
That public “whatever” is called public sentiment.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 7, 2019
And wielding the power to shift it is how we actually achieve meaningful change in this country. https://t.co/u6JtgwwRsk
I don’t believe it was a good idea for Dems to blindly trust the Trump admin when so many kids have died in their custody. It’s a huge mistake.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 7, 2019
This admin also refuses to hand over docs to Congress on the whereabouts of families. People’s lives are getting bargained, & for what? https://t.co/h7gP8Wous1
This is proof that the Democratic Party is having growing pains. They're struggling to figure out just how progressive their party should be. The freshmen group of progressive representatives are incredibly popular and have become the face of the younger, more extremist wing of the party. People like AOC because she's disruptive and challenges the status quo, which makes people feel like she's truly on their side.
And the worst part is Ocasio-Cortez and her "squad" make people like Nancy Pelosi look even remotely norm and moderate. The new "moderate Democrat" was yesterday's progressive. And there's not much further left they can go.