‘Squad’ member Rashida Tlaib joins calls for Dianne Feinstein to quit

Far-left Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) added her voice Friday to those of fellow Democrats demanding chronically absent Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) give up her seat.

“Because Sen. Feinstein was absent, Republicans are passing legislation through the Senate, undermining the right of our residents to breathe clean air,” Tlaib wrote on Twitter, referring to a resolution approved Wednesday that would roll back EPA regulations on emissions from heavy-duty trucks.

“And with a far-right judiciary targeting our human rights, we are unable to confirm judges,” Tlaib added.

“Sen. Feinstein must step down.”

Feinstein, 89, has missed more than 50 votes since she was diagnosed with shingles in February and has been battling unrelated reports of “cognitive decline” for several years.

Earlier this month, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) publicly implored Feinstein to step down, with Khanna saying it was “obvious she can no longer fulfill her duties.”

Feinstein, who intends to retire after the 2024 elections, fired back by saying she did not intend to resign and planned to return to the Senate “as soon as possible.” 

The octogenarian’s absence from the Senate Judiciary Committee has stalled Democrats’ efforts to confirm nominations by President Biden that are unable to get Republican support.

“I’m anxious because I can’t really have a mark-up of new judge nominees until she’s there,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters last month.

Tlaib’s demand that one of 10 Jewish senators leave office recalls her history of provoking controversy with anti-Semitic remarks. 

In 2019, she defended claiming that she experienced a “calming feeling” when she spoke about the Holocaust because “it was my ancestors, Palestinians, who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in many ways, have been wiped out, and some people’s passports.”

Last year, she claimed Democrats “cannot claim to hold progressive values yet back Israel’s apartheid government” — drawing a rebuke from Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who called her comment “shameful and dangerous.”