Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-NY) blasted Democratic infighting in a statement published Sunday, claiming, “I got more s***” from Democrats than Republicans.
Rice made the controversial comment in a CNN Politics report that said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) planned to remain speaker at least through the 2022 midterm elections. Rice’s remarks addressed pressure within the party to pass two recent bills, the infrastructure bill and President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill.
“We can keep saying our diversity is our power — but guess what? I got more s*** from my fellow Democratic colleagues over the past months than I did from the Republicans,” Rice told CNN.
“We’re eating our own at a time when we should be doing everything we can to hold onto our slim majority. Progressives need to remember that Republicans are the ones who want to destroy our democracy, not moderates in their own caucus,” she added.
Notable quotable.
Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-NY): “We can keep saying our diversity is our power — but guess what? I got more shit from my fellow Democratic colleagues over the past months than I did from the Republicans.”https://t.co/OhSuPhd7Vr
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) December 13, 2021
Rice has supported the president’s spending bill but has expressed frustration from other House members in her own party.
Today I voted for the Build Back Better Act. 👇 pic.twitter.com/ulkQ7OptqU
— Kathleen Rice (@RepKathleenRice) November 19, 2021
Much of the criticism was targeted toward members of the House Progressive Caucus, whose chair, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), led a long battle to push for resistance against the recent infrastructure bill until the Senate approved Biden’s spending bill.
“A majority of our respondents affirmed that they would withhold their votes in support of the bipartisan legislation in the House of Representatives until the Senate adopted a robust reconciliation package,” Jayapal and other progressives wrote in an August letter to Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY).
“A majority of our respondents affirmed that they would withold their votes in support of the bipartisan legislation in the House of Representatives until the Senate adopted a robust reconciliation package,” leaders of the progressive caucus tell Pelosi and Schumer pic.twitter.com/3cqSuH9CPK
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) August 10, 2021
The Daily Wire previously reported on the conflict among Democrats regarding the infrastructure and spending bills:
Progressives were holding up the bipartisan infrastructure bill in an attempt to pressure moderate Democrats in the Senate, such as Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), to agree to the social spending bill.
Manchin has been one of the strongest opponents of the massive spending package due to its hefty price tag that was originally around $3.5 trillion. He has pushed back against passing such an expensive bill in the context of the nation’s inflation and uncertainty about the future.
Democrats in the House have gone back and forth with the bills in recent months as negotiations continued…
She told the press, “We’re going to pass both bills, but in order to do so we have to have the votes for both bills.”
Pelosi also requested paid family and medical leave to be included in the hearing on the social spending package earlier this week.