Pelosi’s advice for the ‘Squad’: ‘You’re not a one-person show’
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in a soon-to-be-released biography, offered advice to the “Squad,” telling the progressive group of female lawmakers in the House, “You’re not a one-person show.”
Axios reports that Pelosi gave the blunt piece of advice to the group — which consists of Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) — during one of 10 separate interviews she had with the book’s author, USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page.
“You’re not a one-person show. This is the Congress of the United States,” Pelosi said of the advice she would offer the lawmakers.
Pelosi and the Squad have exchanged numerous barbs since the group was elected in the 2018 blue wave.
At one point in July of 2019, the feud between Pelosi and the group had become so ubiquitous that Pelosi told reporters during a press briefing that she would no longer “be discussing it any further.”
Page wrote that during her second of the 10 interviews with Pelosi, which took place just after those comments, the Speaker’s “anger at the four new progressive congresswomen was palpable.”
Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez have gone back and forth on a number of issues over the years, with the New York Democrat accusing Pelosi of focusing criticisms on female lawmakers of color while Pelosi criticized members of the Squad for publicly criticizing fellow Democrats.
In another excerpt from the book, “Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power,” set to be published on April 20, Page describes Pelosi not wanting to go into aspects of her personal life, such as academic records, but said she was able to get the Speaker to talk a little bit about personal things, “although not always intentionally.”
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