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Pelosi criticized Ocasio-Cortez and three other liberal House Democrats for failing to support a Democratic leadership-backed immigration measure during a Capitol Hill dispute with the White House over funding for the border crisis.
During a closed-door caucus on Wednesday, July 10, Pelosi reportedly asked House members not turn to Twitter to criticize moderate Democrats.
"Do not tweet about our members and expect us to think that that is just OK" Pelosi said, according to Politico.
A Pelosi spokesman explained that the House speaker’s Wednesday comments were about the use of Twitter in general and not targeted at any individual member of Congress. Ocasio-Cortez, a 2007 Yorktown High School graduate, has criticized fellow Democrats since taking office and her Twitter following of 4.7 million is more than any member of Congress and nearly twice Pelosi's following of 2.66 million.
After resistance from AOC and other progressive Democrats, the House majority added new provisions to an appropriations bill to address the humanitarian crisis along the southern border. But some on the far left felt they could not support the bill no matter what, because they felt it would still fund President Trump's border enforcement policies.
Ocasio-Cortez argued that Democrats cannot trust the Trump administration not to divert money for humanitarian aid toward immigration enforcement, after Trump acknowledged that ICE raids would begin after July 4.
"I don't believe it was a good idea for Dems to blindly trust the Trump admin when so many kids have died in their custody. It's a huge mistake," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted here.
Ocasio-Cortez also said on Twitter: "This admin also refuses to hand over docs to Congress on the whereabouts of families. People’s lives are getting bargained, & for what?"
The New York Democrat was responding to remarks Pelosi made in an interview with a New York Times columnist where Pelosi mocked Ocasio-Cortez and three other liberal congresswomen for voting against the border support bill: Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley.
"All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world," Pelosi said in the interview with Times' columnist Maureen Dowd. "But they didn't have any following. They're four people and that's how many votes they got."
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