House Democrats infighting escalates with late-night tweet

US House TV via Reuters

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) presides over the US House of Representatives inside the House Chamber in this still image taken from video on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., May 10, 2019.

• Infighting in the House Democratic caucus continued Friday with a late-night tweet from the official House Democrats Twitter account.
• "Who is this guy and why is he explicitly singling out a Native American woman of color?" the tweet asked. "Her name is Congresswoman Davids, not Sharice. She is a phenomenal new member who flipped a red seat blue."
• The tweet is just another jab in the ongoing tension in the House of Representatives' Democratic caucus.
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Infighting in the Democratic caucus of the House of Representatives continued Friday with a late-night tweet from the official House Democrats Twitter account.

"Who is this guy and why is he explicitly singling out a Native American woman of color?" the tweet asked. "Her name is Congresswoman Davids, not Sharice. She is a phenomenal new member who flipped a red seat blue."

"Keep����Her����Name����Out����Of����Your����Mouth," the tweet continued.

The aforementioned "guy" is Saikat Chakrabarti, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's chief of staff. Attached to the tweet was a screenshot of a two-week old tweet from Chakrabarti responding to another tweet mentioning Rep. Davids.

The Twitter post is just another jab in the ongoing tension in the House of Representatives' Democratic caucus.

It began with Chakrabarti tweeting his displeasure with House Democrats voting for the Senate's bipartisan emergency border aid package that progressives opposed for not including humanitarian protections for migrants.

Reps. Ocasiso-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar, voted against it and criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and moderate Democrats for passing the Senate bill.

Chakrabarti expressed his criticism on Twitter. "Can we stop calling the Blue Dog Caucus 'fiscally conservative but socially liberal?'" he tweeted. "I missed the part of fiscal conservativeness or social liberalness that includes wasting $4.5 billion of taxpayer money to put kids in concentration camps."

Shortly after, Speaker Pelosi was quoted in a New York Times column and appeared to dismiss Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, Omar, and Tlaib.

"All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world," Pelosi said. "But they didn't have any following. They're four people and that's how many votes they got."

Pelosi reportedly addressed the Twitter criticism of the moderate Democrats in a closed door meeting, to which Ocasio-Cortez responded by saying that Pelosi appeared to be signaling out the four freshman congresswomen of color. (Democratic lawmakers have come to Pelosi's defense.)

The latest tweet was retweeted by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's deputy chief of staff.

Chakrabarti responded Friday night saying that he is friends with Rep. Davids and encouraged her to run for office.

"Everything I tweeted 2 weeks ago was to call out the terrible border funding bill that 90+ Dems opposed," he continued. "It gave Trump a blank check to continue caging people in horrendous conditions. Our Democracy is literally falling apart. I'm not interested in substance-less Twitter spats."