Gingrich on Nancy Pelosi's feud with Ocasio-Cortez, other freshmen Dems
Newt Gingrich said Thursday that the public feud between freshman congresswomen and Nancy Pelosi is a result of "bitter differences" between the two and that the House Speaker needs to realize she's "the grandmother" in the conflict.
Newt Gingrich said Thursday that the public feud between freshman congresswomen and Nancy Pelosi is a result of "bitter differences" between the two and that the House Speaker needs to realize she's "the grandmother" in the conflict.
Tensions have reached a boiling point between Pelosi and newcomer Democrats in the House such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The New York congresswoman has made clear that she believes Pelosi is "singling out" progressive women of color like herself, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., after Pelosi reportedly told Democrats to approach her personally about issues instead of airing out disagreements on Twitter.
During a Thursday morning appearance on "America's Newsroom," the former Speaker of the House said that Ocasio-Cortez's argument is a "classic comment by the hard left."
"Everything becomes either an attack on women, but since Pelosi is a woman, it has to be women of color," Gingrich said. "The key thing here is very simple. We have now seen a group of genuine radicals who are way outside any reasonable position, and their public spokesperson is AOC.
"They have a deep bitter difference with Nancy Pelosi, who is an old-time liberal, representing an establishment, which these people, several of these people beat Democratic incumbents, so they come in as the opponents of the very things that Nancy Pelosi stands for," he continued.
Ocasio-Cortez took to Twitter on Tuesday to address the conflict, slamming "sexist" Republicans who have dubbed their disagreement a "catfight."
OCASIO-CORTEZ: PELOSI GIVING ME BUSY WORK, MIGHT BE TRYING TO KEEP ME OUT OF THE WAY
"The reason [Republicans] find it so novel &exciting is bc the GOP haven’t elected enough women themselves to see that it can, in fact, be a normal occurrence in a functioning democracy [sic]," she wrote.
Gingrich added that he respects Pelosi and acknowledged that she is in a "hard place" balancing her own viewpoints with those of an increasingly progressive House. He also argued that the Speaker should recognize the part that a generational gap plays in the disagreement.
"Nancy Pelosi has to recognize -- and I recognize my own age -- that she is the grandmother," he said. "She is yelling at these young members, and they are here thinking you are two generations older than me. Why am I supposed to listen to you?" he continued.
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Those resisting Pelosi are still a relatively small number in the wider context of House members, but Gingrich said that the Speaker will have a "much bigger problem" if that number begins to grow.
Fox News' Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to the reporting of this story.
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