House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is sticking by her public comments dismissing the influence of House freshman progressive star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a handful of others who bucked the Democratic leadership on a border funding bill.
“I have no regrets about anything,” the California Democrat said as she left a closed-door meeting with Democrats Tuesday morning. “Regret is not what I do.”
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Pelosi told the New York Times that Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat and three others who led an unsuccessful effort to defeat a $4.6 billion bipartisan border emergency funding bill lacked influence in the legislative process.
“All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” Pelosi told the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd in a weekend piece. “But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”
Pelosi repeated those sentiments Wednesday as she left the Democratic Caucus meeting.
“Four people voted for the bill and no other people followed,” Pelosi told reporters.
In addition to Ocasio-Cortez, Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, voted against the $4.6 billion border funding bill that was a bipartisan product of the Senate.
The four lawmakers were pushing for provisions in the House bill that would have put limitations on detaining illegal immigrants and added requirements for services and treatment.
[Related: Pelosi urges House Democrats to avoid Twitter fights within the family]
House Democrats, however, had little choice but to back the Senate bipartisan bill because the emergency funding was desperately needed to deal with a massive surge of illegal immigrants on the southern border and it’s the only measure that could clear Congress and win Trump’s signature.
When asked if she had regrets about making the remarks about Ocasio-Cortez and company, Pelosi responded, “No, I do not.”
Pelosi took a veiled jab at Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti, who insulted the speaker on Twitter in response to the dust-up between Democratic leadership and first-term members.
“All these articles want to claim what a legislative mastermind Pelosi is, but I’m seeing way more strategic smarts from freshman members like @AOC, @IlhanMN , @RashidaTlai and @AyannaPressley. Pelosi is just mad that she got outmaneuvered (again) by Republicans,” Chakrabarti tweeted.
Pelosi, who was walking past reporters, stopped in her tracks to let reporters know that “by the way, our caucus is very upset about some of the comments that have come from some of the staff of …”
Pelosi stopped short of saying Ocasio-Cortez, adding, “Perhaps you are not aware of what is going on?”
[Opinion: The future of the Democratic Party isn’t Nancy Pelosi, it’s AOC]
