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Pelosi takes jab at AOC over attention to Twitter followers
WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took an indirect swipe at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Monday, saying passing legislation should take priority over amassing Twitter followers.
“While there are people who have a large number of Twitter followers, what’s important is that we have a large numbers of votes on the floor of the House,” Pelosi told USA Today.
She was asked how she was balancing her social media-savvy socialist-leaning members like “AOC” with those from purple states who won the House majority for the Democrats.
Pelosi said Democrats should fight for the “boldest common denominator.”
But with her 3.9M Twitter followers — and that’s just on her campaign account — Ocasio-Cortez has been sucking up an extraordinary amount of press coverage.
And she’s sometimes bucked Pelosi – while deferring to the speaker on big ticket items like impeachment.
Ocasio-Cortez skipped an “emergency” call last month that the House Speaker set up so the House Democratic caucus could prepare for the release of Attorney General William Barr’s assessment of the Mueller report.
A spokesman for the congresswoman said Ocasio-Cortez was tied up that Saturday with “various strategy meetings and other things like that.”
Ocasio-Cortez also decided not to join the Pelosi-approved Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, opting to instead work on the Green New Deal, a resolution that is sitting in committee.
AOC’s office is expected to offer actual bills on climate change in the coming weeks and months. Pelosi previously referred to the resolution as the “green dream, or whatever they call it.”
Asked by USA Today how Pelosi’s left flank reacted when they were told they needed to push bills that could actually pass, the House Speaker said, “They’re fine.”
“As I say to my own district, ‘You go out and elect 218 people, just like San Francisco, then we can talk,” Pelosi told the paper.
In other words, if the majority of the House was as liberal as the ultra-liberal city she represents, more progressive bills would get passed.
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