Rep. Ayanna Pressley said she intends to “bring the fire” if Americans don’t adopt her political ideology during a conversation with NPR’s Democracy Now as part of the nonprofit organization Rising Majority’s conversation with “the Squad.”
“As I said when we were at the border, we’re going to keep telling and elevating these stories with the hopes that you will see the light,” said Pressley. “And if you don’t see the light, then we will bring the fire. That’s just how it progresses.”
Pressley made the comments in a panel discussion at Howard University in Washington with Reps. Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib, all Democrats. Each of the members has vocalized frustration with President Trump’s immigration policies, with Ocasio-Cortez comparing the border detention centers to “concentration camps.”
Trump refers to the group of congresswomen as the Squad for their collective progressive policy positions emphasizing “Medicare for all,” a federal $15 minimum wage, and social justice issues.
“I never want us to lose sight of one, the power of movement-building, but secondly, the power of storytelling,” said the Massachusetts Democrat. “The way that we change laws is when we change hearts and minds.”
Pressley, 46, is the least known of the four Squad members, but her profile has elevated recently after a “coming out” video in which Pressley revealed she suffers from alopecia. Pressley said she announced the news because she wanted “to be freed from the secret and the shame that that secret carries with it.”
She was harshly criticized for a since deleted tweet in which Pressley claimed that “1 out of 4 ppl in the world are locked away in cages in America.”
Read the rest at: The Squad
