Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview that she feels even other Democrats don’t think she should be in Congress.
Ocasio-Cortez reflects on how she has clashed with the establishment of the Democratic Party, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a new profile published Wednesday in the New York Times.
“In many ways, I feel like I walk around with a scarlet letter because many members who just have any primary, whether I know about it or not, tend to project that onto me,” she told the Times. “In many ways, I feel like I walk through that body as a symbol of someone who should not be there and a threat to the way power is organized.” (RELATED: AOC Doubles Down On The Concentration Camp Rhetoric)
She also said that she felt a “loss of innocence and naïveté” since spending more time in Washington, D.C.
The New York Democrat came into Congress early this year with ambition, quickly introducing her ambitious Green New Deal plan.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – AUGUST 29: U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) speaks to the media after a public housing town hall at a New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) residence on August 29, 2019 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Addressing criticisms of her plan, she lashed out and declared herself the “boss.”
“So people are like, ‘Oh it’s unrealistic. Oh it’s vague. Oh it doesn’t address this little minute thing.’ And I’m like, ‘You try. You do it. ‘Cuz you’re not. ‘Cuz you’re not. So, until you do it, I’m the boss.’ How ’bout that?'” she said in February.
Ocasio-Cortez declares “I’m the Boss… How ’bout that!” while claiming that no one else has tried to come up with climate change policy before the Green New Deal.
Apparently she’s never seen @TheDemocrats policy platform… ever.
This infighting is going to be fun to watch. pic.twitter.com/AV1TgRa5kU
— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) February 24, 2019
Over the summer, Pelosi dismissed Ocasio-Cortez and other newly elected Democratic congresswomen like Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, and Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley, saying, “All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world, but they didn’t have any following.”
“They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got,” she said after the congresswomen voted against an emergency funding bill for the border.
The progressive group of congresswomen opposed the bill on the grounds that it would provide funding to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which the “squad” wishes to abolish altogether.
The GOP has supported building mass concentration camps on the southern border. Kids & families are dying.
Now they want money for more – w/ ZERO negotiation on how $ is spent.
We can’t do that. They‘ve shown that when they get more money, they build more camps. #CloseTheCamps https://t.co/DYhXuU9Crz
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 22, 2019
This led to Ocasio-Cortez accusing Pelosi of “singling out” the “newly elected women of color” in Congress.
Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez have since squashed the beef, it seems.