MSNBC host Joe Scarborough hit at “right-wing commentators” on Friday for “obsessively reporting” on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), noting “it is Nancy Pelosi’s party.”
“Right-wing commentators continue obsessively reporting on @AOC and claiming she reflects the consensus of Democrats,” Scarborough, a former GOP congressman, wrote in a tweet to his more than 2.5 million followers.
“Nonsense. It is Nancy Pelosi’s party. Full Stop,” he added.
{mosads}Ocasio-Cortez, a 29-year-old progressive, has been covered extensively by the media since upsetting Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) in a primary last year. That has led to attacks against her, including by conservative commentators.
The freshman representative released her proposal for a Green New Deal on Thursday, which has been ridiculed by some conservative outlets.
The proposal includes “upgrading all existing buildings” in the country for energy efficiency, overhauling the nation’s transportation systems to reduce emissions, and aggressively expanding high-speed rail service to “a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary.”
But House Speaker Pelosi (D-Calif.) appeared to downplay the Green New Deal, calling it “the green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it, right?”
Pelosi later sought to clarify her remarks, hailing the zeal of the liberal supporters pushing the plan, though still stopping short of endorsing it.
Ocasio-Cortez also pushed back Thursday afternoon on the appearance of party infighting between senior Democratic leadership and herself over how best to address the climate crisis.
“Nancy Pelosi is the leader on climate change. She has always been a leader on climate and I will not allow our caucus to be divided up on silly notions, we are in this together. We are 100 percent in this together,” she told reporters at a press conference. “We have different solutions, different mechanisms, different cars we have to drive to get there.”
Scarborough left the Republican party in 2017 because of President Trump, who was once a frequent guest on the program during his candidacy in 2016.