Nancy Pelosi is known for ruling with an iron grip. Never one to tolerate dissent, Pelosi uses her considerable funding advantage to bring all the Democrats to heel.
She knows how to play the game and she has been quite successful at it over the years. But the game has changed and new freshmen lawmakers are coming in with fame from social media and their own fundraising prowess.
So what is Speaker Pelosi to do with these insurgents…humiliate them on national TV for one. From The Hill:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that the left flank of the House Democratic caucus represented by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is “like five people” in a Sunday interview.
Asked by Lesley Stahl about potential insurrections or pushback from the progressive wing of the party, Pelosi responded, “That’s like five people.” She also disputed that there was a distinction between herself and progressive Democrats, saying she herself identified as a progressive.
When Stahl asked for Pelosi’s thoughts on the left wing of the party pushing initiatives such as “Medicare for all,” which Stahl said were “allowing the president to say you’re all socialists,” Pelosi noted the GOP made similar claims when former President Lyndon B. Johnson led the creation of Medicare in the 1960s.
“This is an ongoing theme of the Republicans,” Pelosi said. “However, I do reject socialism as an economic system. If people have that view, that’s their view. That is not the view of the Democratic Party.”
“By and large, whatever orientation [House Democrats] came to Congress with, they know that we have to hold the center. That we have to go down the mainstream,” she told Stahl.
Pelosi also said she respected the office of the presidency too much to rule out any cooperation with President Trump. “He’s not worth the trouble of saying you’re so horrible we can’t work together. No, we need to work together,” Pelosi told Stahl, echoing earlier comments that Trump was “not worth” impeachment.
Can the Speaker of the House unify the Democratic party while getting pushback from the left and self-described democratic socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? https://t.co/f4VUYTYIdw pic.twitter.com/a9wOobPj5g
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) April 14, 2019
