- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez addressed the ongoing chaos in the Republican Party.
- She said it showed the group of progressives she's a member of is reasonable in comparison.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said chaos in the Republican Party over the failure to elect a House speaker showed that the Squad, the group of progressive Democrats she's a member of, is reasonable in comparison.
Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat and the most prominent member of the group, was commenting on the dysfunction in the GOP after a third day of voting in which Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the party's House speaker candidate, failed to gain the 218 votes required to be elected to the role.
"I think, whether you're Democrat, Republican or independent, what this whole episode really indicates and shows us is, again, just how bad faith and ... substance-less the argument and accusation is that progressives are, are just as bad as, as these insurrectionists Republicans," Ocasio-Cortez told The Independent.
McCarthy's candidacy is opposed by a group of 20 hard-right Republicans, who have remained firm in their opposition throughout 11 rounds of voting across three days.
"The more days that this goes on the more this truly starts to have a corrosive impact on our country," Ocasio-Cortez said.
The Squad comprises Representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Jamaal Bowman of New York, and Cori Bush of Missouri, in addition to Ocasio-Cortez.
The group have regularly clashed with Democratic Party leadership on issues including the Green New Deal and expanded Medicare provisions.
Newly-elected House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries has, in the past, accused members of the progressive left of the party of being divisive and out-of-touch with mainstream political opinion.
"The extreme left is obsessed with talking trash about mainstream Democrats on Twitter, when the majority of the electorate constitute mainstream Democrats at the polls," Jeffries told CNN in 2021.
Ocasio-Cortez pushed back against criticisms.
"I think [the current situation] just highlights how extraordinarily bad faith those accusations of progressive unreasonableness are, even when they come from our side of the aisle," she said.