Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and her progressive allies got schooled Thursday for "using the race card" in the wake of the lawmaker's slap at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for being racially insensitive.
Veteran Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, called out Ocasio-Cortez and fellow freshmen progressives Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., The Hill reported.
"What a weak argument, because you can't get your way and because you're getting pushback, you resort to using the race card? Unbelievable. That's unbelievable to me," Clay said. "I could care less. I could really care less. I agree with the Speaker. Four people, four votes out of 240 people, who cares."
Ocasio-Cortez said Wednesday that Speaker Pelosi was not only "outright disrespectful" to the new lawmakers, but suggested the criticism was racist.
"But 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," she complained during an interview with The Washington Post.
In an interview with The New York Times, Pelosi was dismissive of the four newcomers, saying despite their big presence on social media, they only account for four votes in the Democratic caucus.
"It shows you how weak their argument is when they have to resort and direct racist accusations toward Speaker Pelosi . . . it's very disappointing to me," Clay said, The Hill reported.
He also upbraided Ocasio-Cortez's chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti and the progressive group Justice Democrats as "juvenile" and "ignorant."
The Justice Democrats have endorsed a progressive primary challenger against Clay and other centrist Democrats. Chakrabarti last week sent out a tweet comparing centrist Democrats to "new Southern Democrats" who "certainly seem hell bent to do to black and brown people today what the old Southern Democrats did in the 40s," The Hill reported.
"It shows you how ignorant and little history [Chakrabarti] knows, how ignorant he is to American history. How dare he," Clay said.
"They're missing the fact that we have a very thin margin of a majority that we're operating under and apparently it doesn't matter to Justice Democrats, they just want to get skins. They want to score points for whatever reason," he railed, The Hill reported.
"But I find it juvenile, their tactics, I find their ignorance to be beyond belief about American history and about who are really segregationists. And so how dare they try to play the race card at this point, it shows you the weakness of their arguments."
In response Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez clarified the remarks suggesting Pelosi was racist, telling CNN's Maju Raju: "No, no, absolutely not, absolutely not."
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