Nancy Pelosi “cannot be seen by her party as being weak on negotiating with Donald Trump,” says President Donald Trump’s acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. And “Nancy Pelosi is only looking to protect her speakership … and that’s why she’s unwilling to negotiate with us,” according to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. These were excuses by the Trump administration to shift blame for the government shutdown. But they also were intended to suggest that Pelosi’s hold on the speaker’s gavel is tenuous, buffeted by a left-wing insurgency led by ambitious, impatient newcomers like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The reality is that Pelosi grabbed the gavel on Thursday with a firm grip. The first two battles led by Ocasio-Cortez and her Instagramming army of rebels ran smack into Pelosi’s establishment fortress. When Ocasio-Cortez made waves by loudly demanding a new committee tasked with drafting a “Green New Deal,” Pelosi quietly brushed it aside last week, as if to say: Kids, brush up on your Schoolhouse Rock.