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‘The Squad’ Rankles but Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez Make Peace for Now ‘The Squad’ Rankles, but Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez Make Peace for Now
(about 4 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Six days after Democrats swept to power in the House, a quartet of newly elected women of color met in Washington for the first time. Somebody snapped a picture and one of them — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — posted it on Instagram. WASHINGTON — Six days after Democrats swept to power in the House, a quartet of newly elected women of color met in Washington for the first time. Somebody snapped a picture, and one of them — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — posted it on Instagram with a one-word caption: “Squad.”
Like the millennial that she is, she tagged it with a flip one-word caption: Squad. Today, that foursome — Representatives Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan — may be Washington’s best-known political clique. But their forceful brand of progressive politics and command of the spotlight rankles some fellow Democrats, including the most important Democrat in Washington: Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who on Friday appeared to make peace with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez — at least for now.
Today that foursome — Representatives Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan — may be Washington’s best-known political clique. But their strident brand of progressive politics and command of publicity rankles some fellow Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “In a family, you have your differences, but you’re still family,” Ms. Pelosi told reporters after the two met privately for 30 minutes, at Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s request. She acknowledged “some personality issues.”
On Friday morning, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was holed up in the speaker’s office, trying to make amends. Lionized by the liberal left and vilified by President Trump — who is waging a relentless campaign to attack them as anti-American — Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and the others roared into Washington in January as part of the most diverse freshman class in American history, and quickly emerged as a proxy for the debate over the future of the Democratic Party, exposing its ideological and generational divisions.
“In a family you have your differences, but you’re still family,” Ms. Pelosi told reporters later. She acknowledged “some personality issues,” although she described them as “minor.” To underscore the point, she posted a photograph of herself and a smiling Ms. Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter. Tensions between the quartet and Ms. Pelosi erupted into public view this month amid a fight over humanitarian aid to the border. The women blasted the aid package as insufficient and voted against it. Ms. Pelosi dismissed them as “four people” who “didn’t have any following.” Then Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and her chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, took shots at the speaker on Twitter — a stunning breach of protocol for a young lawmaker and an unelected aide
Lionized by the liberal left and vilified by the right, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and the others roared into Washington in January as part of the most diverse freshman class in American history, and quickly emerged as a proxy for the debate over the future of the Democratic Party. They do not always vote the same way — Ms. Pressley broke with the others this week in voting for a resolution condemning the boycott Israel movement — but they are closely aligned on immigrants’ rights issues. They ran afoul of Ms. Pelosi by voting as a bloc against a package of humanitarian aid for the border, which they deemed insufficient to protect children in detention. Ms. Omar infuriated many veteran Democrats this year with remarks many deemed anti-Semitic. Ms. Tlaib took the party off course on Day 1 with her off-color promise to impeach Mr. Trump.
People close to them say they have forged genuine friendships and a close bond. They communicate regularly via a private text chain, as do their chiefs of staff and their communications directors. On occasion, their offices plot strategy together and coordinate media appearances, including a joint news conference last week and an interview with Gayle King of CBS News in response to a relentless campaign by President Trump to paint them as anti-American. All declined interviews for this article. But fences are being mended. Ms. Omar is joining Ms. Pelosi on an official trip next week to Ghana. Ms. Tlaib appeared at a fund-raiser with Ms. Pelosi over the weekend; when the speaker was in Detroit on Monday, she was greeted by protesters chanting, “Support the squad!”
“What we are, are four women who have an alignment of values, shared policy priorities, who have repeatedly happened to land in the same place on the issue of immigration,” Ms. Pressley told Ms. King. “That is it. There is no insurgency here. There’s nothing conspiratorial.” They do not always vote the same way. Ms. Pressley broke with the others this week to vote for a resolution condemning the boycott Israel movement. Just two of them — Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Ms. Tlaib — voted for a two-year spending package that passed on Thursday.
Mr. Trump’s attacks — in a tweet earlier this month, he told the women to “go back” to their home countries even though only one of them, Ms. Omar, a Somali refugee, was born outside the United States — prompted Democrats to defend them. The House voted to condemn the president’s comments as racist, and even moderates like Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, a centrist from Maryland who had trouble remembering Ms. Omar’s name, stood behind them. But people close to the women say they have forged genuine friendships and a close bond. They communicate regularly via a private text chain, as do their chiefs of staff and their communications directors. On occasion, their offices plot strategy together and coordinate media appearances, including a joint news conference last week and an interview with Gayle King of CBS News to push back against Mr. Trump. All declined interviews for this article.
“What we are, are four women who have an alignment of values, shared policy priorities, who have repeatedly happened to land in the same place on the issue of immigration,” Ms. Pressley, who keeps the lowest profile of the four, told Ms. King. “That is it. There is no insurgency here. There’s nothing conspiratorial.”
Mr. Trump’s attacks — in a tweet this month he told the women to “go back” to their home countries, even though only one of them, Ms. Omar, a Somali refugee, was born outside the United States — prompted Democrats to rally around them. The House voted to condemn the president’s comments as racist, and even moderates like Representative C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, a centrist from Maryland who had trouble remembering Ms. Omar’s name, stood behind them.
“I said, ‘Look, you don’t know me; we’ve only met once or twice,” Mr. Ruppersberger said, recounting a conversation with Ms. Omar after Mr. Trump’s tweet. “But I can tell you this: ‘I’m behind you 100 percent.’”“I said, ‘Look, you don’t know me; we’ve only met once or twice,” Mr. Ruppersberger said, recounting a conversation with Ms. Omar after Mr. Trump’s tweet. “But I can tell you this: ‘I’m behind you 100 percent.’”
Still, Mr. Ruppersberger said he and other moderates were wary of the women, fearing they would push primary challengers to run against them. And the four did not make a good impression when they arrived, he said. “What caused the problem is they were coming after members who were not like themselves, who were not progressive, were moderate,” he said. “I think when the new generation comes in, sometimes they don’t understand what it is to be in the majority.” Still, Mr. Ruppersberger said he and other moderates were wary of the women, fearing they would push primary challengers to run against them. And while progressives view the four as some of the most exciting figures in the Democratic Party, they did not make a good impression with some of their more senior colleagues when they showed up for work in January.
All four landed in Washington as firsts. Ms. Pressley, the first black woman to represent Massachusetts, is joined by Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who in addition to being the youngest woman ever elected to Congress is the first Latina to represent her district. Ms. Omar is a Somali refugee, and she and Ms. Tlaib, who is of Palestinian descent, are the first two Muslim women in Congress. “I think when the new generation comes in, sometimes they don’t understand what it is to be in the majority,” Mr. Ruppersberger said.
The four are the only freshmen elected with the backing of Justice Democrats, a grass-roots organizing group that burst onto the scene last year after orchestrating Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning primary defeat of Joe Crowley, a member of the Democratic leadership. All four landed in Washington as firsts. Ms. Pressley, 45, a former member of the Boston City Council, is the first black woman to represent Massachusetts; Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, 29, a former bartender and onetime organizer for Senator Bernie Sanders, is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress and the first Latina to represent her district.
“These are four women of color who speak truth to power, who do not want to maintain the status quo and are going to fight like hell, like they have nothing to lose, for the biggest solutions to some of our biggest problems,” Alexandra Rojas, Justice Democrats’ executive director, said in an interview. “They are all doing exactly what they said they were going to be doing on the campaign trail.” Ms. Omar, 36, is a former state legislator and the first woman to wear a hijab on the House floor. She and Ms. Tlaib, 43, a lawyer and former state legislator who is of Palestinian descent, are the first two Muslim women in Congress. Both have been the subject of fierce criticism for their views on Israel.
Although the four women share political ideology, they also came together in part because of happenstance. A bipartisan group called VoteRunLead, which trains women to run for office and was meeting in New York, asked the women to sit for a joint Facebook Live interview when they were in Washington after the 2018 midterm elections in November, when the photo posted on Instagram of them was taken. VoteRunLead’s founder, Erin Vilardi, said she would have included another progressive woman of color — Representative Lauren Underwood of Illinois — in the interview, had Ms. Underwood been available at that hour. The four are the only freshmen elected with the backing of Justice Democrats, a grass-roots organizing group that burst onto the scene last year after helping Ms. Ocasio-Cortez with her stunning primary defeat of Joe Crowley, the No. 4 Democratic leader. During the campaign, some of them connected through social media, and after Ms. Ocasio-Cortez won her primary, she helped the others.
“The four of them are unique and I would include Lauren Underwood in that,” Ms. Vilardi said. “They’re challenging norms on leadership and what it means to be a strong leader.” “These are four women of color who speak truth to power, who do not want to maintain the status quo and are going to fight like hell, like they have nothing to lose, for the biggest solutions to some of our biggest problems,” Alexandra Rojas, Justice Democrats’s executive director, said in an interview. “They are all doing exactly what they said they were going to be doing on the campaign trail.”
Moderates are not the only Democrats who are nervous about them — or at least the group that backs them. Justice Democrats is also targeting some veteran members of the Congressional Black Caucus, several who had complained openly about the group — and by implication, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, whose chief of staff is a founder of it — in an article in The Hill newspaper. At the same time, Mr. Trump’s efforts to make the women the face of the Democratic Party have raised expectations about how they should behave. Although the four women share political ideology, they also came together in part because of happenstance. A bipartisan group called VoteRunLead, which trains women to run for office and was meeting in New York, asked the women to sit for a joint Facebook Live interview when they were in Washington after the 2018 midterm elections, when the photo posted on Instagram of them was taken.
“They have been thrust into the middle of a debate about the heart and soul of this country and that does carry with it a unique set of responsibilities,” said Representative Tom Malinowski, a centrist Democrat from New Jersey. “He has now put them in a very special position. It would be my hope that all of us, wherever we fall on the ideological spectrum, will advance our agenda while embracing in every possible way the patriotism that we share with all of our fellow Americans.” VoteRunLead’s founder, Erin Vilardi, said she would have included another progressive woman of color — Representative Lauren Underwood of Illinois — in the interview, had Ms. Underwood been available at that hour.
In an opinion piece in The New York Times published Thursday, Ms. Omar tried to do just that, issuing a call to defend the “ideals at the heart of our founding — equal protection under the law, pluralism, religious liberty,” even as she took Mr. Trump to task. “The four of them are unique, and I would include Lauren Underwood in that,” Ms. Vilardi said. “They’re challenging norms on leadership and what it means to be a strong leader.”
“Throughout history, demagogues have used state power to target minority communities and political enemies, often culminating in state violence,” she wrote. “Today, we face that threat in our own country, where the president of the United States is using the influence of our highest office to mount racist attacks on communities across the land.” Moderates are not the only Democrats who bristle at the women — or at least the group that backs them. Some veteran members of the Congressional Black Caucus blasted Justice Democrats — and by implication, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and her chief of staff, Mr. Chakrabarti, who founded it — in an article in The Hill newspaper.
Two senior Democratic aides, both speaking on the condition of anonymity, said several Democratic lawmakers have urged Ms. Ocasio-Cortez to dismiss Mr. Chakrabarti, arguing that his outspokenness is undermining her. Mr. Chakrabarti, who is on paternity leave, did not respond to a request for comment; nor did a spokesman for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.
Waleed Shahid, the Justice Democrats’s communications director, showed no signs of tempering his criticism. On Friday afternoon, as Capitol Hill talked of rapprochement, he used Twitter to talk up conflict: “I don’t understand the aversion to conflict and vague calls for ‘unity’ on the Hill. Of course, there will be conflict between someone who primaried the 4th ranking House Democrat, participated in a sit-in at @SpeakerPelosi’s office, & encouraged more people to run in primaries.”
The foursome’s one unquestionable good for the party is fund-raising; Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, for instance, has already raised $2 million this cycle. But with Mr. Trump determined to make the women the face of the party, some Democrats say they need to tone it down — or at least be more careful with their words.
“They have been thrust into the middle of a debate about the heart and soul of this country, and that does carry with it a unique set of responsibilities,” said Representative Tom Malinowski, a centrist Democrat from New Jersey. “He has now put them in a very special position. It would be my hope that all of us, wherever we fall on the ideological spectrum, will advance our agenda while embracing in every possible way the patriotism that we share with all of our fellow Americans.”