House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took several swipes at socialists causing problems in her caucus during a recent interview about the growing fissures.
And while Pelosi touted her “credentials” as a “progressive from San Francisco,” she’s lecturing freshmen Democrat representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Justice Democrats about pipe-dream proposals that have zero chance of becoming reality, USA Today reports.
Pelosi told the news site “you have to govern mainstream” while working toward the “boldest common denominator.”
“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,” Pelosi said.
That won’t happen with a Green New Deal packed full of socialist policies that most Americans oppose.
Pelosi’s message to AOC and Justice Democrats backing the GND and other wild ideas like abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement: “As I say to my own district, ‘You go out and elect 218 people, just like San Francisco, then we can talk.’”
The USA Today interview comes as Pelosi struggles to corral warring factions of the Democrat party at a time when Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described socialist, is leading the pack to challenge Trump in 2020.
More than two dozen moderate Democrats, many in districts Trump won in 2016, sided with Republicans to amend a proposed gun control bill to alert the government when illegal immigrants attempt to purchase a firearm.
The issue prompted AOC to threaten to keep a list of moderate Democrats to challenge in the 2020 primary, as well as rebukes from those targeted welcoming the challenge.
Pelosi is clearly aiming to put socialist like AOC in their place, dismissing proposals including Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and demands to impeach President Trump.
Pelosi described the GND to USA Today as “a list of aspirations,” and said Medicare for All won’t be up for a vote any time soon.
“That’s not legislation. It’s a list of aspirations,” Pelosi said of the GND. “Just because somebody has an idea doesn’t mean it goes to the floor because the committee process and we build the support that we need for it. And that bill has many things that have nothing to do with climate. And so that has to go to different committees.”
It certainly isn’t the first time Pelosi shaded AOC’s plan to save the planet from climate change.
In February, after activists led by AOC stormed her D.C. office to demand a committee on the GND, Pelosi told Politico the proposal “will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive.
“The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it right?” she said.
Pelosi also mocked the GND during an appearance at The Economic Club of Washington, D.C. a month later, again referring to the resolution as the “green dream,” The American Mirror reports.
The House Speaker told USA Today she’s spoken with radicals in her caucus about coming up with real solutions that may actually gain enough support to pass, but she offered only two words when prompted on the response she received.
“They’re fine,” Pelosi said.
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