Pelosi, Ocasio-Cortez to meet Thursday to address tensions within party

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) are set to meet Thursday to address the Democratic infighting that erupted after the House passed an emergency border funding bill, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Tensions between Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez have been in the spotlight since the freshman lawmaker vocally criticized and voted against a $4.6 billion border funding bill that had already passed in the Senate. She argued that the bill did not include tough enough standards for migrants to be fed and sheltered on the border.

The House passed the legislation late last month, with an amendment that required U.S. Customs and Border Protection to enact standards for adults and children for “medical emergencies; nutrition, hygiene, and facilities; and personnel training.”

{mosads}Ocasio-Cortez retweeted a post calling the legislation “an inexcusable submission by Nancy Pelosi and the moderate Democrats,” and said the bill was a “blank check” with “NO accountability.”

This Senate Bill will have us write a $4.6 Billion blank check (incl military $) for the border w NO accountability – just a verbal pinky promise.

Trump is not to be trusted with protecting our immigrants. Why must that even be stated? We need hard lines of protection, in ink. https://t.co/xFci23pFo6

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 27, 2019

Ocasio-Cortez was backed up by her allies in the House, like Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). In an interview after the vote, Pelosi struck back at the group, saying “these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world” and adding: “They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.” 

Ocasio-Cortez then criticized Pelosi for targeting the group, which is made up of women of color, but later clarified that she believes Pelosi is “absolutely not” racist. 

Tensions dissipated briefly after President Trump took aim at the freshman lawmakers in tweets and comments telling them, all minority women, to “go back” where they came from. But despite unity among Democrats in condemning Trump’s comments as racist, leadership also clashed with Ocasio-Cortez by rebuking her chief of staff in a tweet.

The House faces another spending resolution this next week, which will raise the debt limit until July 31, 2021. The House faced pressure from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who said the House must vote on the legislation before they leave for the August recess on Friday to prevent the government from going over its borrowing limit.

Progressives have not said that they will oppose the deal, according to The Wall Street Journal, but Ocasio-Cortez criticized the agreement Pelosi and Mnuchin reached in a tweet Monday.

Notice how whenever we pursue large spending increases + tax cuts for corporations, contractors & the connected, it’s treated as business as usual.

But the moment we consider investing similar in working class people (ex tuition-free college) they cry out it’s “unrealistic.” https://t.co/aypyYps9pM

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 22, 2019

A spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez declined to comment to The Hill. The Hill has reached out to Pelosi’s office for comment.