PHILADELPHIA — Members of New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “squad” defended their colleague amid a rift with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, without mentioning the top Democrat by name.
“Every single person in Congress has a role. Our role is to take our votes and leadership’s role is to wrangle votes,” Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, said Saturday at Netroots Nation, an annual conference for liberal activists.
“There’s a constant struggle oftentimes with people who have power about sharing that power. We are not really in the business of asking for the share of that power. We’re in the business of trying to grab that power,” she said.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said, “the people closest to the pain should be the closest to the power” and she’s not focused on “palace intrigue.”
“You have to be unapologetically you,” said Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan.
Ocasio-Cortez called Pelosi “outright disrespectful” and accused her of targeting freshman congresswomen of color after the speaker said the group “didn’t have any following. They’re four people, and that’s how many votes they got.”
Some attendees of a liberal conference booed at least twice when Pelosi’s name was mentioned on Friday.
