Pelosi Says She Has No Hatchet to Bury with AOC and the Squad

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought to smooth over public grievances with high-profile progressive Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as she emerged from a private meeting with the New York freshman Friday morning.

“I don’t think we have that many differences,” Pelosi said as she left her office, adding a complaint that similar meetings with other lawmakers don’t get the same attention.

Ocasio-Cortez, who’s prominent profile has created friction with some other Democrats, departed without speaking to reporters.

Shortly afterward, the speaker posted on Twitter a photo of the two together and wrote, “Today, Congresswoman @RepAOC and I sat down to discuss working together to meet the needs of our districts and our country, fairness in our economy and diversity in our country.”

Many House members have already left Washington for a six-week recess, and Pelosi is keen for their message in their home districts to be one of accomplishment in the first 200 days of this legislative session rather than disputes within the party.

The meeting came after months of public sniping between the two women, some of which also involved other progressive newcomers in the House known along with Ocasio-Cortez, 29, as “The Squad.”

Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, 45, of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar, 37, of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib, 43, of Michigan, have agitated party moderates -- and Pelosi, 79, as well -- with their aggressive push for sweeping policies favored by the left, such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.

But they and other progressive Democrats stood behind Pelosi in her election for speaker early this year amid calls by some moderate members for the California Democrat to step aside for younger leadership.

There have been some testy exchanges between Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez. Pelosi seemed to be dismissive of Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal,” an ambitious but vague resolution to address climate change.

“That’s not legislation. It’s a list of aspirations,” Pelosi said in an interview with USAToday.

More recently, the tensions were exacerbated after the four freshmen women voted against a border bill supported by Pelosi that they said didn’t set adquate standards for the treatment of migrants.

“All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” Pelosi said in an interview with the New York Times’s columnist Maureen Dowd. “But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”

Ocasio-Cortez had tweeted that the House passage of that Senate-passed bill without any negotiations for changes would be “an abdication of power we should refuse to accept. They will keep hurting kids if we do.” She also took to Twitter to fire back at some of Pelosi’s dismissive quotes.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel

TICTOC ON SOCIAL:

Follow TicToc on Twitter

Like TicToc on Facebook

Follow TicToc on Instagram

Watch all of TicToc’s videos

Listen to TicToc’s podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter

TicToc by Bloomberg is global news for the life you lead. We are a 24/7 news network that covers breaking news, politics, technology, business and entertainment stories from around the globe, supported by a network of Bloomberg’s 2,700 journalists across 120 countries.