Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she would not be addressing her recent spat with the more left-leaning freshmen members of the Democratic Party anymore during her press conference Thursday morning.
Her refusal to comment comes as she has feuded with Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley.
“I’ve said what I’m going to say in the caucus. That’s where this is appropriate, and I said what I’m going to say in the caucus. They took offense because I addressed, at the request of my members, an offensive tweet that came out of one of the member’s offices that referenced our Blue Dogs and our New Dems essentially as segregationists,” Pelosi stated at the press conference. “Our members took offense at that. I addressed that. How they’re interpreting and carrying it to another place is up to them. But I’m not going to be discussing it any further.”
Then, when a reporter asked her a follow-up question on the matter, she added, “We respect the value of every member of our caucus. The diversity of it all is a wonderful thing. Diversity is our strength. Unity is our power. And we have a big fight, and we’re in the arena, and that’s all I’m going to say on the subject. If you want to waste your question, you can waste your question.”
The spat within the party began last weekend when Pelosi told New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd that the vocal freshmen had little actual power in Congress.
“All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” she said. “But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”
The freshmen members of Congress pushed back on Pelosi, with Ocasio-Cortez saying she doesn’t have a relationship with the speaker.
The fight continued when Pelosi said she doesn’t regret any of the comments she made.
In turn, Ocasio-Cortez told the Washington Post Wednesday that, “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.”
