House Speaker Nancy Pelosi deflected a question regarding freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‘s controversial comments, claiming instead that Republicans will “misrepresent anything” a Democrat says.
This Wednesday, while speaking at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, Nancy Pelosi was asked for her thoughts on the self-described democratic socialist’s remarks that compared illegal immigrant detainment facilities at the southern border to concentration camps and whether she has addressed with the freshman members “the power of their words.”
As previously reported, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez claimed in a Live video on Instagram that the centers used to hold illegal immigrants attempting to cross into the U.S. through the border were “exactly” like concentration camps.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi responded by saying that members of Congress “take responsibility” for their “statements” and that she “hasn’t spoken” to Rep. Ocasio-Cortez about her comments before claiming that Republicans “will misrepresent anything” that members in the Democratic caucus say if there is even “one word” they can “exploit.”
“These members of Congress are — they come and represent their districts and their point of view, and they take responsibility for the statements that they make. I’m not up to date on her most recent one, I saw something in the news.” Pelosi said.
“But I — no, I haven’t spoken to her about that. I do have some comments to make to my caucus writ large about the political nature of how politically charged the atmosphere is, so understand that while the Republicans have no interest in holding the president accountable for his words, they will misrepresent anything that you say just if you have one word in the sentence that they can exploit.” She added.
Nancy Pelosi’s refusal to address Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks isn’t the first time the speaker has tried to flip the script against Republicans after another Democrat’s controversial comment.
Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats demanded President Trump and House Republicans apologize to Rep. Rashida Tlaib for trying to “misrepresent” her remarks from a recorded interview in which she claimed that she had a “calming feeling” when she thought about the Holocaust because Palestinians gave Jews a “safe haven” after the tragedy.
