Democrat Ayanna Pressley: No More ‘Black Faces That Don’t Want to Be a Black Voice’

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), a member of the “Squad” that Democrats claim was the target of a racist attack by President Donald Trump on Sunday, told left-wing bloggers Sunday afternoon: “We don’t need any more black faces that don’t want to be a black voice.”

Pressley is one of the four left-wing Democrats disparaged out last week by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as the “Squad.” The most prominent member, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), called Pelosi’s attack racist. That, in turn, drew criticism from the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).

In response, Pressley appeared to blast the members of the CBC. The Washington Post reported:

An all-out racially charged fight within the House Democratic Caucus escalated Saturday when an African American freshman lawmaker said the party doesn’t need “any more black faces that don’t want to be a black voice.”

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) made those comments during a speech at the liberal Netroots Nation conference where she, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) appeared after a week-long clash with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her allies.

…

“This is the time to shake that table. . . . We don’t need any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice,” Pressley said, seemingly taking a stab at the Congressional Black Caucus, which is allied with Pelosi. “We don’t need any more black faces that don’t want to be a black voice.”

Separately, one of the “Squad” members, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), a former refugee from Somalia, told a high school audience that the United States had failed to become a just society. She and Trump also traded barbs late last week.

On Sunday, Trump tweeted:

On Sunday, Pelosi, the Squad, and almost the entire 2020 Democratic presidential primary field called Trump a racist for his tweets.

Pressley herself had tweeted in response: “THIS is what racism looks like.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.