(HorizonPost.com) – Reporter Ryan Grim of The Intercept is out with a new book on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of the so-called Squad.
The book, “The Squad: AOC and the Hope of Political Revolution,” recounts in detail how the unknown New York bartender transformed into the darling of the progressive movement and how that transformation led to her becoming a pariah among her Democrat colleagues, according to an excerpt published by the UK Daily Mail.
According to Grim, Ocasio-Cortez’s surprising primary victory over Democrat Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley angered Democrat House leadership. Following her primary win, then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi met with Ocasio-Cortez and urged her to shelve her “Abolish ICE” slogan, arguing that the phrase was “injected” into US politics by the Russians.
Pelosi’s strained relationship with Ocasio-Cortez only grew worse after AOC won in the 2018 midterms. Just weeks after the midterm elections, AOC joined a group of climate activists that stormed Pelosi’s office.
After she was first sworn in as a freshman congresswoman, Ocasio-Cortez angered the new Democrat majority when she voted against a House rule requiring all new tax cuts or entitlement spending to be paid for, claiming that the rule was a “dark political maneuver” and “bad economics.”
In his book, Grim writes that the divide between Ocasio-Cortez’s power outside of Capitol Hill and its display on her first day in Congress “could hardly have been greater.”
However, it wasn’t just the Old Guard that had problems with Ocasio-Cortez.
House Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) didn’t appreciate being “firmly usurped” by the first-term congresswoman from New York. According to Grim, AOC stealing the spotlight from Jayapal was not something the Washington congresswoman would easily forgive.
Grim recounts one incident in which Jayapal summoned Ocasio-Cortez and her then-chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti to a meeting. According to Grim, Jayapal demanded that AOC “keep her staff in line.”
Chakrabarti, who resigned after less than 7 months on the job, compared the meeting with Rep. Jayapal to being called to the principal’s office, according to Grim.
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