The tremors and aftershock of President-elect Donald Trump’s Election Day victory are still reverberating through the Democratic Party over a month after the fact.
And it’s starting to get ugly, according to Axios.
The combatants? New York Rep. and progressive “squad” member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is in one corner, while Democrat figurehead and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in the other corner.
The issue at hand? Ocasio-Cortez’s newfound push to be the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.
Axios reported that the outspoken New York representative must stare down a “Pelosi-led slugfest” for that role.
The report noted that one of the aftereffects of Trump’s victory has been the Democrats pushing out their own older party members in favor of younger ones.
Many older Democrats, including New York Rep. Jerry Nadler (more on this shortly), have either already bowed out of committee races or are planning to.
“Many members are concerned about [the] precedent these races are setting,” a senior House Democrat told Axios.
In Ocasio-Cortez’s case, the 35-year-old representative is challenging 74-year-old Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly.
Should Nancy Pelosi retire?
The 84-year-old Pelosi reportedly backed Connolly in this race.
“Pelosi has been approaching colleagues urging them to back Connolly over Ocasio-Cortez,” the report noted.
Punchbowl News first reported that Pelosi was working “to defeat” Ocasio-Cortez.
Despite Pelosi’s best efforts, Axios noted that Ocasio-Cortez “has pretty much the entire [Oversight] Committee with her.”
“Still, lawmakers stressed that it is not a firm lock,” the outlet added.
Regardless of what happens to the role, it’s evident now that Pelosi would prefer to have her finger on the pulse of everything and everyone associated with the Democrat Party.
Ocasio-Cortez, by virtue of being part of the far more left-leaning “squad,” clearly does not have the general backing of Pelosi.
And neither did the 74-year-old Nadler.
Many eyebrows were raised on Capitol Hill when Nadler stepped down from the top spot on the House Judiciary Committee earlier this month, with many looking at Pelosi for having meddled to get in Rep. Jamie Raskin, 61.
While all of this consternation appears to be a direct result of Trump’s election win, it’s also worth noting that Pelosi has been accused of meddling in top Democratic affairs even before that.
Perhaps most infamously, many reports have suggested that there is a bit of lingering bad blood between incumbent President Joe Biden and Democrat brass like Pelosi and former President Barack Obama over the way Biden was unceremoniously ousted from his re-election bid.
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