The End of "The Squad?"

 

“The Squad” may be no more.

Despite a new class of progressives coming to Congress next term, the band of leading liberal firebrands — led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — is likely to dissolve, insiders say. 

“I think the idea of ‘The Squad’ is going to go away, and I think that it is going to be fascinating to see how [AOC] shares the spotlight of progressivism,” one senior Hill staffer told The Post.

Ocasio-Cortez, 31, and her crew, including Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib and Massachusetts’s Ayanna Pressley, have been chummy power players since 2019, when they frequently sat together for joint appearances and interviews.

But with the pending departure of their most vocal critic, President Trump, and newly elected reps with their own agendas, there will be less to tie the group together, the source offered.

Newcomers like Ritchie Torres, a pro-Israel backer, has said he wouldn’t sign up for “Squad” duty. 

Two other leftists — Jamaal Bowman, who recently called capitalism “slavery by another name,” and Mondaire Jones, who, along with Torres, is the first openly gay black member of Congress — could look to seize the spotlight for themselves. 

“The idea of ‘The Squad’ — as ‘The Squad’ — may really shift and change and you might see cleavages there because the pressures and interests wont be as unified as they were under Trump,” the source said.

Omar raised eyebrows when she appeared to take a shot at AOC for getting the coronavirus vaccine before the elderly and frontline workers.

Ocasio-Cortez was vaccinated live in an Instagram story to her 8.2 million followers Dec. 18.

Two days later, Omar took to Twitter to slam Congressmembers who were vaccinated ahead of frontline workers or the elderly. 

“It’s now clear that we don’t have enough vaccines for everyone and there is shortage of supply, we have to prioritize those who need it most,” Omar wrote Dec. 20. “That’s why it’s disturbing to see members be 1st to get vaccine while most frontline workers, elderly and infirm in our districts, wait.”

Omar’s father died of coronavirus complications in June.

The next day, Ocasio-Cortez spoke out about her decision to get the vaccine, after Kentucky Senator Rand Paul cited her as someone who shouldn’t have been among the first wave of inoculations. 

“Gee, maybe if the GOP hadn’t spent so much time undermining public faith in science, masks,& COVID itself, I wouldn’t have to weigh the potential misinfo consequences of what wld happen if leaders urged ppl to take a new vaccine that we weren’t taking ourselves! [sic],” she tweeted.

Another former “Squad” source said Omar wasn’t calling AOC out, and even claimed Omar probably didn’t know her colleague was getting the vaccine when she made her remarks.

“The broader message that this carries is this fantasy that there is some sort of orchestrated squad that is doing anything at all resembling strategic things for anybody other than themselves,” the source claimed.

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