On Thursday, Speaker Emerita of the House Nancy Pelosi spoke at an event hosted by Third Way, self-described as a “national think tank championing modern center-left ideas.”
Speaking to establishment Democrats, Pelosi sounded the alarm about third parties… and presumably took a veiled swipe at a fellow Democrat in Congress.
Pelosi began by attacking No Labels, a nonprofit known for encouraging bipartisan centrists in next year’s presidential election.
“No Labels is perilous to our democracy,” the California Democrat told reporters, according to Politico. “I hesitate to say No Labels because they do have labels. They’re called no taxes for the rich. No child tax credit for children. They’re called let’s undo the Affordable Care Act.”
The centrist group’s leaders are rumored to have considered backing a primary challenger to Pelosi in January 2017.
At the time, Pelosi was heading toward an easy re-election, and she ignored the group. Now, she’s hitting the panic button… because it could cost Joe Biden his re-election.
“When they jeopardize the reelection of Joe Biden as president of the United States, I can no longer remain silent on that,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi added that, even without a third party, Congress can already “find some common ground” on issues like foreign aid to allies.
With the remark about the child tax credit, Pelosi may have been attacking Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat known for letting the spending program expire.
Manchin is not running for re-election to the Senate, and he’s hinted at his nationwide ambitions. He even appeared at a No Labels event in New Hampshire earlier this year.
“What I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together,” Manchin said this month in a video announcing his retirement from the Senate.
The centrist group, backed by anonymous donations of tens of millions of dollars, has already secured presidential ballot access in a dozen states with many more expected over the coming months. Its officials say it will decide early next year whether to launch a presidential ticket.
No Labels released a statement describing Manchin as “a tireless voice for America’s commonsense majority and a longtime ally of the No Labels movement.”
After Pelosi’s remarks, No Labels co-chair Larry Hogan hit back.
“She ascribes positions to No Labels that they never took. She accuses No Labels of causing chaos in the House even though they’ve spent 14 years working to forge bipartisanship and combat the extremism destroying the country,” Hogan, a Republican who served two terms as governor of Maryland, said in a statement obtained by CBS News.
“Congressional leaders don’t like it sometimes when No Labels challenges their partisan agendas and their power, but we don’t apologize for that for a minute. Someone needs to speak for the common-sense majority, and we are glad to do it.”
At the Third Way event, Pelosi also fielded questions about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a lawyer running for president as an independent. She took Kennedy less seriously.
“I’m not in favor of a person who is an anti-vaxxer,” Pelosi told CBS News. “Look at his agenda.”
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.