Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said in an interview published on Tuesday that her relationship with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-NY) is one “that is not distinguished from anyone else,” throwing cold water on those who think she has a chummy and strategic relationship with Pelosi.
When the New Yorker’s David Remnick asked her what her relationship with Pelosi is like, she said: “I think sometimes people think that we have a relationship.”
Remnick interjected: “Are you saying you don’t?”
Ocasio-Cortez replied: “Not particularly. Not one that is distinguished from anyone else.”
She said the last time she had a one-on-one conversation with Pelosi was when Pelosi asked her to join the select committee on climate change. Ocasio-Cortez said she declined Pelosi’s invitation because she did not get some “specific requests” that she thought “were rather reasonable.” Those demands included the ability to draft legislation by 2020, subpoena power, and barring committee members from accepting fossil-fuel money.
The New York Democrat said she has also been “pretty shocked with the concentration of power internally,” saying that “rules within Congress have changed over the years to put,” in her opinion, “an insane amount of power in a handful of people within even just the House of Representatives.” She said power is consolidated with the Speaker, the leadership, committee chairs, and the Minority Leader.
Ocasio-Cortez was critical of her party for constantly being on the defensive, falling into Republican frames on a host of issues, and too often being afraid of its values.
Remnick interviewed Ocasio-Cortez on July 5, a day before the New York Times published its interview with Pelosi in which she dismissed Ocasio-Cortez and her squad—Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
“All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” Pelosi told Maureen Dowd of the Times. “But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people, and that’s how many votes they got.”
Ocasio-Cortez has spent the past few days firing back, implying that Pelosi is stale, does not understand the concerns of everyday people and how to move public sentiment to “achieve meaningful change,” and is campaigning with tactics from the last decade.
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