Ocasio-Cortez Again Insinuates Pelosi Is Using Her Race Against Her

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez insinuated that House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi is a racist, but when called on it she backed off.

She spoke to CNN reporter Manu Raju a day after comments in which she accused the speaker of singling out women of color.

“It’s really just pointing out the pattern, right? We’re not talking about just progressives, it’s signaling out four individuals,” she said on Thursday.

“And knowing the media environment that we’re operating in, knowing the amount of death threats that we get, knowing the amount of concentration detention, I think it’s just worth asking why,” she said.

But when asked if she thought that the speaker was a racist she said “No, no, absolutely not, absolutely not” emphatically.

Really? Then why mention the fact that you are women of color rather than the fact that you are the most outspoken and controversial?

The answer is because she knows the Democrat playbook that Pelosi helped write and using the race and gender cards is on page one.

The comments from the 29-year-old representative comes a day after she first insinuated that the speaker was being racist.

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has taken her feud with House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi to the extreme by insinuating she is a racist.

Pelosi made headlines when she mocked the Twitter followings Ocasio-Cortez and her crew of Reps. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley.

Then Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib fired back with shots of their own, followed by Omar who got into the fray with them.

And then on Wednesday Rep. Pelosi told them to stop tweeting and to take any issues they have with her to her like adults.

That request was too much for Ocasio-Cortez to handle as, like a child, she took her argument to the world and accused the speaker of racism.

“When these comments first started, I kind of thought that she was keeping the progressive flank at more of an arm’s distance in order to protect more moderate members, which I understood,” she said to The Washington Post.

“But the persistent singling out … it got to a point where it was just outright disrespectful … the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color,” she said.

It is kind of ironic, and poetic justice in a way, as Pelosi is among those that created the “use your race or gender as an argument” playbook.

The comments by the 29-year-old representative from the Bronx came mere hours after Pelosi asked them to stop tweeting.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday urged unity among fellow Democrats in the face of battles over the direction of the party and warned members to ditch Twitter and keep their disagreements private.

“You got a complaint? You come and talk to me about it. But do not tweet about our members and expect us to think that that is just OK,” Pelosi said during a closed meeting of House Democrats, according to a source who was in the room.

It was not clear if Pelosi, the top elected U.S. Democrat, was aiming her remarks at a specific lawmaker’s tweet or issuing a general warning about using social media, the favorite means of communication for Republican President Donald Trump.

Pelosi’s approach on matters ranging from protecting young immigrants in detention to whether to impeach Trump has faced resistance from some liberals, including progressives who swept into office in last year’s elections when Democrats won control of the House of Representatives.

She reminded her caucus on Wednesday of the need for compromise given Republican control of the Senate and White House, making clear she had her eye on posting gains in the November 2020 elections.

Pelosi was meeting with her caucus for the first time since late June, when the liberal wing of her party failed to win stronger standards for the treatment of immigrants being detained at the southern border with Mexico.

Pelosi now faces another challenge as the House prepares to debate and vote this week on legislation reauthorizing U.S. defense programs.

Some liberals are balking at the $733 billion price tag of the bill and are seeking a wide range of amendments, while Trump and some of his fellow Republicans in Congress are seeking even more money for the military. The White House on Tuesday threatened a veto of the House bill.

Reuters contributed to this report.