House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a subtle jab towards Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over her alleged dependency on Twitter for public support, insinuating that the freshman lawmaker is neglecting to do work required pass the Democratic agenda into laws.
Ms Ocasio-Cortez has almost 4 million followers on Twitter and has often used Twitter as a tool to rally public support for her progressive proposals including the Green New Deal.
Ms Pelosi, 79, told USA Today on Monday that she is running into issues of leading a House caucus while freshman Democratic lawmakers are pushing the party further to the left. She accuses them of prioritising symbolic gestures over actual legislative achievements.
“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,” the California Democrat said.
She did not mention Ms Ocasio-Cortez by name in the interview.
Ms Pelosi added that she believes progressives are “fine” after she told them they needed to look into introducing moderate legislation that have a higher chance of passing the House.
“As I say to my own district, ‘You go out and elect 218 people, just like San Francisco, then we can talk,’” Ms Pelosi added.
This isn’t the first time the House Speaker derided Ms Ocasio-Cortez. In February, Ms Pelosi scoffed at the Green New Deal, a climate change proposal introduced by the New York Democrat, in an interview with Politico.
“It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive,” Ms Pelosi said. “The green dream, or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it, right?”
