Pelosi responded by saying this: “While there are people who have a large number of Twitter followers, what’s important is that we have large numbers of votes on the floor of the House.”
CNN’s Chris Cillizza responded to the interview by charging that “the speaker of the House again turns her gaze to the most famous/infamous freshman House member in recent memory: New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”
Though Pelosi did not mention AOC by name, Cillizza said “you’d have to be a real dummy” not to make the connection. AOC has 3.9 million Twitter followers and often employs social media to espouse her views about how the Democratic party is doing business.
But why would Pelosi use an USA Today interview as the platform to call out AOC?
“What message is she sending?” asks Cillizza. “This one: Look, I have been a liberal's liberal for longer than you've been on earth. But not everyone House Democrat represents districts like we do. And we need to understand that they are governed by a different set of political realities. The most important thing we do isn't score ideological points. It's pass legislation as a united caucus --to show all Americans we are doing the work, not just playing partisan games.”
And he said Pelosi’s comments are also part of a broader fight happening within the Democratic Party at the moment as “activists and candidates navigate a post-Obama and post-Clinton landscape. At the presidential level you have Joe Biden, the former vice president as the ur-establishment figure while Bernie Sanders -- and a number of other candidates -- are offering a more liberal, outsider perspective.”