Article snippet: WASHINGTON — When Representative Ayanna Pressley took the oath of office in the House chamber in January, she arrived with 13 years experience as a staffer on Capitol Hill and nine years on the Boston City Council. It was the resume of a political insider. But how she got there — upsetting 10-term Representative Michael Capuano after launching a gutsy Democratic primary challenge — was the daring move of an outsider. Since then, Pressley has tried to straddle a difficult line: one foot in the establishment and the other in “the Squad,” the band of four rebel congresswomen intent on shaking up Washington. Their boldest act of political defiance so far has put them squarely in President Trump’s political line of fire and at the heart of a national debate on race, patriotism, and free speech. As she settles into her career in Congress, Pressley seems to be aiming to use her insider and outsider reputations to try to have the best of both worlds. “I don’t feel like an outsider and I haven’t been treated like one,” she said last week in an interview in her cramped House office. Yet over the past two weeks, Pressley and the rest of the Squad — Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan — have found themselves center stage in a scalding controversy that has them at odds not only with Trump but with their own party leaders. Pressley has been the least controversial of the four, all women of color. But her... Link to the full article to read more