Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has questioned the party’s future leadership in Congress, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is offering a “sharp” response.
CBS’ Lesley Stahl spoke with Pelosi during an interview, which aired over the weekend, where she noted that Pelosi is 80 years old, Pelosi’s “number two, Steny Hoyer’s 81” and the speaker’s “number three, Jim Clyburn, is 80.”
After asking why she has not “brought young people into the leadership,” as Stahl put it, Pelosi said, “Because we have. You perhaps don’t know.”
Stahl then asked her, “Why does AOC complain that you have not been grooming younger people for leadership?”
Pelosi quickly responded, “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her– because we are.”
Stahl noted that the House speaker’s response was “kind of sharp, kinda dismissing her,” to which Pelosi said, “I’m not dismissing her. I respect her.”
“I think she’s very effective as are other– many other members in our caucus that the press doesn’t pay attention to. But they are there and they are building support for what comes next,” Pelosi added.
Watch Pelosi’s interview below:
Lesley Stahl: Why does AOC complain that you have not been grooming younger people for leadership?
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) January 11, 2021
Speaker Pelosi: I don't know. You'll have to ask her– because we are. https://t.co/rdhe47lbw3 pic.twitter.com/fl1v1d5zTS
Ocasio-Cortez previously said during a podcast with The Intercept that she does “think that we need new leadership in the Democratic Party.”
She said the struggle with “the internal dynamics of the House” has “made it such that there’s very little option for succession.”
Asked if she is “ready to say, Pelosi and Schumer need to go,” Ocasio-Cortez said in December, “I think so.”
During a recent interview with Punchbowl News, the New York lawmaker was asked if she would challenge Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) for his Senate seat in 2022, to which she did not rule it out. However, she said, “I’m a no bulls**t kind of person. I’m not playing coy or anything like that.”
“I’m still very much in a place where I’m trying to decide what is the most effective thing I can do to help our Congress, our [political] process, and our country actually address the issues of climate change, health care, wage inequality, etc.,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
Former President Barack Obama previously suggested Ocasio-Cortez should be given a bigger platform to speak, saying, “New blood is always good.”
