‘She is NOT a racist!’ Trump backs Nancy Pelosi in race-charged feud with AOC and her ‘squad’

Donald Trump sided with Nancy Pelosi on Friday in her fast-boiling feud with New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, after the 29-year-old freshman lawmaker claimed the House speaker was critical of her because she isn’t white.

‘I think Cortez is being very disrespectful to somebody that’s been there a long time,’ Trump said, referring to the 79-year-old Californian who took office two years before Ocasio-Cortez was born.

‘She is not a racist, okay? She is not a racist. For them to call her a racist is a disgrace,’ he said.

Pelosi pushed back Thursday in a closed-door meeting of Democrats, saying Ocasio-Cortez overreacted after she scolded one of the young congresswoman’s aides for a tweet that hinted some Democratic lawmakers are secret segregationists.

The speaker later defended her scolding of Ocasio-Cortez and her ‘squad’ of fellow first-term liberals. 

‘They took offense because I addressed, at the request of my members, an offensive tweet that came out of one of the member’s offices that referenced our Blue Dogs and our New Dems essentially as segregationists,’ she said during her weekly press conference. 

‘Our members took offense at that. I addressed that. How they’re interpreting and carrying it to another place is up to them.’

Ocasio-Cortez had criticized Pelosi for ‘persistent[ly] singling out … newly elected women of color.’

‘I think it’s really just pointing out a pattern, right?’ she added on Thursday.

‘We’re not talking just about progressives,’ the young lawmaker continued. ‘it’s singling out four individuals and knowing the media environment we’re operating in, knowing the amount of death threats we get, knowing the amount of concentration of attention, I think it’s worth asking why.’

She was referring to the women she calls her ‘squad,’ fellow Demorcatic representatives Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

Trump on Friday singled Omar out for an unexpected attack. 

He called the quartet ‘a group of people that, I don’t know where they came from.’

‘I’m looking at this Omar from Minnesota. And if one-half of the things that they are saying about her are true, she shouldn’t even be in office.’ 

The Minnesota Campaign Finance Board said this year that Omar had filed joint tax returns with a man who wasn’t legally her husband in 2014 and 2015.

The official husband, according to a small news outlet in Minnesota called Alpha News, may be her biological brother. Conservative activists have speculated that the arrangement was designed to skirt immigration laws and make him a legal resident.

Alpha News had cited social media posts that appeared to cast Omar and her legal husband as siblings. One, posted in 2012, congratulated the pair on the birth of their third child, who the husband called his ‘nieces.’

Trump suggested Friday that Pelosi should take action against Omar, Tlaib, Pressley and Ocasio-Cortez.

‘I deal with Nancy Pelosi a lot and we go back and forth, and it’s fine. But I think that a group of people is being very disrespectful to her. And you know what? I don’t think that Nancy can let that go on,’ he said.

‘Cortez should treat Nancy Pelosi with respect. She should not be doing what she’s doing.’ 

Nancy Pelosi dismissed a charge from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez she is racist

The speaker snapped at reporters who tried to question her further on the feud

The speaker snapped at reporters who tried to question her further on the feud

Speaker Pelosi said she was standing up for lawmakers offended by a tweet from House staffer Saikat Chakrabarti, who is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's chief of staff

Speaker Pelosi said she was standing up for lawmakers offended by a tweet from House staffer Saikat Chakrabarti, who is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff

Saikat Chakrabarti deleted this tweet, which many members of Congress found offensive

Saikat Chakrabarti deleted this tweet, which many members of Congress found offensive

Ocasio-Cortez’s slam on Pelosi came in a Washington Post story where she accused her of repeatedly singling out ‘newly elected women of color’ and called the speaker ‘outright disrespectful.’

‘I kind of thought that she was keeping the progressive flank at more of an arm’s distance in order to protect more moderate members, which I understood,’ Ocasio-Cortez said of Pelosi’s criticisms.

‘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 continued.

The freshman Democrat backtracked on Thursday, telling CNN Pelosi is ‘absolutely not’ a racist. 

Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of repeatedly singling out ‘newly elected women of color’, branding the congressional veteran as being ‘outright disrespectful’

Ocasio-Cortez backtracked Thursday and told CNN Pelosi is not a racist

Ocasio-Cortez backtracked Thursday and told CNN Pelosi is not a racist

But speaking with The New York Radio Hour, Ocasio-Cortez had said she believes a significant amount of insincere pandering toward vulnerable groups occurs among lawmakers during legislative discussions.

‘When it comes to women of color in Congress, particularly the freshman, it’s that we both have encountered and represent communities that have been auctioned off and negotiated off for the last 20 years, and we’re over it,’ she said. 

‘We see in these negotiations all the time. It’s like fighting for black communities or policies that help women,’ she said. ‘They’re bargaining chips. And they’re the first chips that are reached for in any legislative negotiations.’ 

Ocasio-Cortez accused Congress of using woman and minority groups as ‘bargaining chips’ for decades, auctioning and selling them off for their own political gain

Ocasio-Cortez accused Congress of using woman and minority groups as ‘bargaining chips’ for decades, auctioning and selling them off for their own political gain

 

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