Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will hold her weekly press conference Wednesday afternoon at the Capitol.
Pelosi has been embroiled in controversy over the past week both inside her party and out. The veteran Democrat has been attacked by younger, freshman lawmakers who call themselves “The Squad” — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) — for her dismissal of their Twitter followings as unrepresentative of the entire Democratic base. Both Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib have suggested that Pelosi is callously putting a target on their backs for more racial abuse and death threats — and that race may be a factor in her criticizing them.
On Tuesday evening, Pelosi found herself reprimanded for violations of the House rules — calling President Donald Trump “racist” during a floor speech, having her remarks struck from the record losing her right to speak in Congress for the rest of the day until Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) organized a series of votes to withdraw that penalty. The embarrassing episode led Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver (D-MO), then presiding over the session, to abandon the chair and storm out of the room.