Democrats are embroiled in an internal war, with members lashing out at each other and a small contingency – composed of freshmen Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota – feuding with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
The war is playing out in the public eye. Last week, Pelosi told Democrats behind closed doors not to tweet criticisms of their centrist colleagues. Two days later, the official House Democrats Twitter account trashed Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti for “singling out a Native American woman of color” and telling him to “keep her name out of your mouth,” as The Daily Wire’s Ryan Saavedra previously reported.
Left-wing reporters rushed to try and stop Democrats from themselves.
Now reporters are doing the same in response to an anonymous quote from a “Democratic leadership source” to The New York Daily News. The quoted individual claimed Justice Democrats – a left-wing political action committee that helped Ocasio-Cortez win in 2018 – are just “trust fund kids”:
“Justice Democrats in general are trust fund kids who are funding this with their parents’ money,” the source said, blasting the progressive group as “elitist” for criticizing black lawmakers from poor districts who take corporate donations. “It’s offensive for CBC members when these elites are looking down on them when they don’t have the financial ability to say, ‘I don’t want that money.’”
The source used Chakrabarti as an example. Chakrabarti is a “millionaire Harvard graduate who worked on Wall Street before turning to left-wing politics,” the Daily News reported.
The quote, predictably, is making the rounds on social media, and now reporters are crying foul.
Kate Aronoff, a contributor to the Intercept, called the anonymous source’s claim “deranged” and a “straight-up lie.”
“Still getting over how deranged it is for @HouseDemocrats to publicly attack one of their own members’ staffers while Top Democratic Staffers keep getting license to just straight-up lie to the press – who publish their lies anonymously!!” she tweeted.
The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel added that it was “really gross to grant anonymity for attacks that, cattiness aside, aren’t even *true.* Name the source or don’t print it.”
Justice Democrats board members Alexandra Rojas, Demond Drummer, and Nasim Thompson gave the Daily news a joint statement calling the anonymous statement “false.”
“Senior members of the Democratic Party can make whatever false claims they want, but it’s clear that their bottom line is: no primary challenges,” the trio wrote.
“Let’s make one thing clear,” the statement continued. “No incumbent is entitled to their seat. That’s why we have elections…Primaries are good for our party.”
Compare the way the media is handling the Democrat internal struggle to the giddiness with which it covered the Tea Part in 2010.
