Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez clarified remarks she made suggesting Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was racist for disrespecting women of color.
“No, no, absolutely not, absolutely not,” the New York Democrat said Thursday in regards to whether she believed Pelosi was racist according to CNN.
I asked AOC if she thinks Pelosi has racial animus or is racist, and she said: “No, no, absolutely not, absolutely not.”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 11, 2019
The freshman congresswoman had said the day before that Pelosi was “outright disrespectful” to women of color.
“But the persistent singling out … it got to a point where it was just outright disrespectful … the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color,” Ocasio-Cortez said Wednesday.
The feud between Ocasio-Cortez and Pelosi rekindled after the senior lawmaker told the New York Times in an interview Friday that Ocasio-Cortez and her allies have no real power.
“All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” the California Democrat said. “But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”
The freshman congresswoman responded initially by accusing Pelosi of ignoring the American people.
That public “whatever” is called public sentiment.
And wielding the power to shift it is how we actually achieve meaningful change in this country. https://t.co/u6JtgwwRsk
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 7, 2019
I find it strange when members act as though social media isn’t important.
They set millions of ? on ? to run TV ads so people can see their message.
I haven’t dialed for dollars *once* this year, & have more time to do my actual job. Yet we’d rather campaign like it’s 2008.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 7, 2019
“That public ‘whatever’ is called public sentiment. And wielding the power to shift it is how we actually achieve meaningful change in this country,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I find it strange when members act as though social media isn’t important. They set millions of dollars on fire to run TV ads so people can see their message. I haven’t dialed for dollars *once* this year, & have more time to do my actual job. Yet we’d rather campaign like it’s 2008.”
Pelosi held a closed-door meeting this week in which she chided Democratic members for tweeting about other members in the caucus.
She said she was particularly upset at Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti suggesting on Twitter suggesting that moderate Democrats were akin to southern segregationists in the 1940s.
