'Patetico!' Ilhan Omar Slams Nancy Pelosi Comments On Dems Who Voted Against Border Bill

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. hit back at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after the latter criticized her and three other lawmakers for voting against the $4.6 billion border bill that President Donald Trump recently signed into law.

Pelosi’s decision to support the Senate version of the border funding bill instead of the House version triggered the rift. The bills differed in terms of stricter oversight of migrant care in detention facilities, which the House version demanded, and the additional funding for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which the Senate version demanded.

The Senate version was not well-received by the progressives, who thought it lacked the guarantees that detained immigrants, particularly children, will receive humanitarian aid, among others. Pelosi, however, thought that it was the strongest bill that the Congress could get, and indicated that the upstart Democrats had to be realistic.

Omar, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich was against the measure, with Omar, saying that the bill was only throwing more money at the Trump administration that she accused of committing human rights abuses.

In an interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Pelosi criticized the four Democrats, for voting against border bill. She also downplayed the influence of the lawmakers collectively referred to as “the Squad”.

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

In response, Ocasio-Cortez took to Twitter to explain to Pelosi that “public ‘whatever’ means “public sentiment” and “wielding the power to shift” is a way to achieve meaningful change in the country. Omar responded to Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet, to fire back at Pelosi.