Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is clearly still calling the shots in the U.S. House of Representatives.
She took exception this week to a reporter asking her a question implying that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was tasked with negotiating the government shutdown.
Pelosi denied that anything the reporter was saying was fact, but the premise came right from the mouth of AOC herself.
There is significant speculation that AOC would wage a primary battle against Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) when his seat comes back up for re-election in the next cycle.
That possibility is what many in the GOP believe is driving Schumer to hold firm on the current shutdown.
For instance, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) stated, “This is a Schumer hysteria act. Schumer knows he can’t afford to vote for this," referencing the continuing resolution desired by the GOP.
He continued, “Here you have a career politician who is more afraid of his reelection … than he is doing what’s right for the American people. This is what happens when you have a career politician. He is afraid of AOC over a clean [continuing resolution].”
During a recent interview on MSNBC, AOC was asked about comments from the GOP accusing her of forcing the shutdown.
She responded, "If senators think that we're having a shutdown because of me, they're free to enter my office and negotiate.”
This created a firestorm in the media, and it gave the GOP the ammo it needed to create a bit of a stir inside the Democratic Party.
We know that AOC has been dying to get into party leadership, and the implication here was that she is calling the shots behind the scenes, and that did not sit well with Pelosi, who is the puppeteer of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).
A reporter baited Pelosi with the question, "There was a thought from the Republicans that AOC is directing this, and she said that senators are welcome to go to her office directly. Is she driving that?"
Pelosi called it “a ridiculous thing,” but the reporter shot back that she was only quoting AOC directly about her door being open for talks. Pelosi shot back, "She’s wonderful, she’s a real team player, and the rest of that. You started by saying Republicans say that she’s directing this. She is not, Hakeem Jeffries is, and this takes a lot of experience, a lot of unity from the caucus in terms of the point of view, and that’s what this is."
You see her response in the video below, and there are two things I noticed right away…
First, Pelosi may have had a few extra cocktails at lunch, as her slurring is getting worse by the day. Second, Pelosi does not like the idea of AOC in leadership, so it seems that the former speaker is the one with a boot on AOC's throat, holding her back from a ranking position in the party. Something tells me we may have a nice little feud brewing here.
