Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was berated by a GOP colleague who called her a “b**ch” as she walked up the Capitol steps on Monday night.
Representative Ted Yoho of Florida approached the Democratic lawmaker and went into a profanity-laced rant, according to The Hill. The brief exchange was overheard by a reporter.
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Yoho accused AOC of being “disgusting” for recently attributing the spike in crime in New York to poverty and unemployment. She made the comments during a virtual town hall with the mothers of Ramarley Graham and Eric Garner, both of whom lost their loved ones to police brutality. AOC pushed back against the notion that more policing was needed to address the rising crime rates.
“Crime is a problem of a diseased society, which neglects its marginalized people,” she stated at the July 9 event. “Policing is not the solution to crime.”
Yoho allegedly confronted her about the assertion at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
“You are out of your freaking mind,” Yoho told her.
Ocasio-Cortez replied that he was being “rude.”
Yoho then called AOC out of her name and allegedly declared that she was a “fu***ng b*tch.”
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Ocasio-Cortez and Yoho parted ways after this point but the heated exchange has now become public. The liberal firebrand said it was the first time that she’d been accosted in such a manner since assuming office in 2019.
“I never spoke to Rep. Yoho before he decided to accost me on the steps of the nation’s Capitol yesterday. Believe it or not, I usually get along fine w/ my GOP colleagues. We know how to check our legislative sparring at the committee door,” she tweeted.
“But hey, ‘b*tches’ get stuff done,” added Ocasio-Cortez, who retweeted a report by The Hill newspaper about their exchange a day earlier.
Rep. Roger Williams of Texas was a witness to the exchange but denied hearing the contentious exchange.
“I was actually thinking, as I was walking down the stairs, I was thinking about some issues I’ve got in my district that need to get done,” Williams said. “I don’t know what their topic was. There’s always a topic, isn’t there?” Williams told The Hill.
AOC called the Texas rep out on social media for his denial.
“Gotta love Republican courage from Rep @RogerWilliamsTX: when he undeniably sees another man engaged in virulent harassment of a young woman, just pretend you never saw it in the most cartoonish manner possible and keep pushing,” she tweeted.
“(He’s lying, by the way. He joined in w/ Yoho),” she continued and said he threatened to throw urine on her.
in a statement, Yoho denied the incident took place at all.
“He did not call Rep. Ocasio-Cortez what has been reported in the Hill or any name for that matter,” said the spokesman, Brian Kaveney, who added, “Instead, he made a brief comment to himself as he walked away summarizing what he believes her polices to be: bulls—.”
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