A new book by journalist Ryan Grim details the tensions between former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and progressive star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The Guardian reports that The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution , out next week, exposes the chilly relationship between the two Democratic House colleagues.
Grim recounts the first in-person meeting between Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez, which took place in San Francisco the month after Ocasio-Cortez stunned the political world by defeating incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary for a House seat from New York.
“Ocasio-Cortez, who had made the slogan ‘Abolish ICE’ central to her challenge to Crowley, was particularly perplexed to hear Pelosi say that the phrase had been injected into American political discourse by the Russians and that Democrats needed to quash it,” Grim writes. “AOC wondered, ‘This is how the leader of the party thinks?’”
Grim also writes that Pelosi seemed to mock Ocasio-Cortez, who was 29 when she was sworn into Congress. In a text message, Ocasio-Cortez wrote, “The amount of times [Pelosi] told me that stupid ‘I have protest signs older than you in my basement’ shit. Like yeah but mine don’t collect dust.”
A Kirkus critic called The Squad “an insider’s often dismaying picture of national politics.” It is scheduled for publication next Tuesday by Henry Holt.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
