Several Democrats in the left-wing “Squad” in the U.S. House of Representatives attacked the Senate’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal on Wednesday evening by drawing attention to the racial makeup of the negotiators, who are white.
House Democrats, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), have said that they will not support the bipartisan Senate deal unless the Senate also passes a $3.5 trillion bill on other “infrastructure” through the reconciliation process. The larger bill includes “green” policies, along with left-wing social spending priorities that Republicans rejected in negotiations.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus rejected the bipartisan deal, calling it “small and narrow” in a statement Wednesday:
Our statement on the budget and infrastructure negotiations: pic.twitter.com/yQ2aypcuxc
— Progressive Caucus (@USProgressives) July 28, 2021
But that was not enough for some members of the “Squad,” who blamed the shape of the deal on the race of the Senators.
First-term Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) likened the bipartisan group of Senators to the “audience at a Kid Rock concert”:
Is this the Bipartisan Infrastructure Group or the audience at a Kid Rock concert?#NegotiationsSoWhite pic.twitter.com/qxVw4ar9x5
— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) July 28, 2021
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the Squad’s most well-known and notorious member, was somewhat more subtle:
A lot of times, “bipartisan agreements” are just as defined by who people in power agree to exclude than include. pic.twitter.com/9o4y3j60fD
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 29, 2021
Fellow Squad member Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) avoided racial remarks in his criticism, sticking to the substance:
We were sent to Congress to transform lives. If the Senate fails to support a reconciliation package that meets the moment on climate and our care economy, I can’t see myself supporting their goal of passing a bipartisan package for infrastructure. https://t.co/JRVi4hmu1E
— Jamaal Bowman (@JamaalBowmanNY) July 28, 2021
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) helped the infrastructure deal clear the first procedural hurdle earlier on Wednesday when she declared that she would not vote for the $3.5 trillion proposal, meaning that it could not muster a majority in a 50-50 Senate.
In 2019, House Republicans voted to strip then-Rep. Steve King (R-IA) of all his committee assignments over remarks to the New York Times that appeared to question why the racial terms “white nationalist” and “white supremacist” were offensive.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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