WATCH: Nancy Pelosi Snaps at Reporter After Fielding Multiple Questions on Ocasio-Cortez

Speaking with reporters at a press conference ostensibly regarding health care, House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) ended up spending a great deal of time answering questions about upset primary winner Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a self-proclaimed socialist.

After answering several questions about health care, the former Speaker began to take questions regarding last night’s stunning primary upset, where Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY) lost, by a lot, to the newcomer Ocasio-Cortez.

A lot of the questions focused on whether being a “socialist” was the new mandate . One reporter asked if democratic-socialism is “ascendant” in the party.

“It’s ascendant in that district perhaps,” she answer, “but I don’t accept any characterization of our party presented by the republicans, so let me reject that right now.”

She also several times drew a distinction between herself and her district and of Crowley and Ocasio-Cortez. “Our party is a big tent, our districts are very different” Pelosi said.

One reporter got a snappy answer when pressing about leadership roles.

REPORTER: “Leader Pelosi, to that end, the Democratic Party is increasingly younger, more female, more diverse, more progressive. Should the Democratic House leadership look that way?”

PELOSI: “Well I’m female, I’m progressive, I’m — and the rest. So what’s your problem? (Laughter) Two out of three ain’t bad.”
REPORTER: “[indecipherable]”

PELOSI: “No, they did. They made a choice in one district. So let’s not get yourself carried away as an expert on demographics and the rest of that. Within the caucus or outside the caucus, we are — again, we have an array of genders, generations, geography, and there is opinion in our caucus, and we’re proud of that. The fact that in a very progressive district in New York, it went more progressive than — Joe Crowley is a progressive, but more she’s left than Joe Crowley, is about that district. It is not to be viewed as something that stands for anything else.

An interesting look into how the party is going to have to self-examine going forward.

Watch the clip above, courtesy of MSNBC.

[Featured image via screengrab]

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Follow Caleb Howe (@CalebHowe) on Twitter

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