OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of the most outspoken Democrats in Congress and she has, time and again, said things that are ridiculous.
Often times she annoys even her own party and / or goes after them as she did in her most recent interview.
She appeared on the CNN show “State of the Union” with host Jake Tapper on Sunday where the 30-year-old representative essentially threatened moderate Senate Democrats on the infrastructure deal, saying that if the Senate does not pass the reconciliation bill sans Republican support that the House “will uphold our end of the bargain and not pass the bipartisan bill until we get all of these investments in.”
“So, we really need to see that language and see what’s put in there … when it reaches the House,” she said. “Bipartisan doesn’t always mean that it’s in the interests of the public good, frankly. Sometimes, there’s a lot of corporate lobbyist giveaways in some of these bills.”
She claimed that “a very large amount of the Progressive Caucus” in the House would not vote for the bipartisan infrastructure package if the more massive reconciliation bill did not pass.
“The total amount is about 90. I am not the whip of the Progressive Caucus,” she said. “But what I can tell you is that it’s certainly more than three. And it is in the double digits, absolutely.”
“Enough to prevent it from passing?” Tapper said.
“More than enough,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“I respect that we have to get Sen. Sinema and Manchin’s vote on reconciliation,” she said, referring to Democrat Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
Basically, that was a temper tantrum on national television. If she does not get what she wants she will vote against anything passing to fix the nation’s infrastructure.
She also said a number of things regarding voting rights which were ridiculous and the host did not say a word to push back on any of it.
“President Biden and other administration officials have signaled they believe the Democrats can out organize Republicans, even though Republicans are passing all these measures, that generally speaking make it more difficult to vote,” the host said to her. “And generally speaking, a lot of the impetus for this is the Big Lie, that the election was stolen.”
“You’re an organizer. Former organizer. Is that a realistic strategy, what President Biden is saying?” he said. “That the Democrats can out organize Republicans on this?”
“I appreciate the White House’s optimism, but I believe it verges on naivete,” she said.
“It already took unprecedented historic organizing to overcome the voter suppression efforts in 2020,” she said. “And we barely squeaked through on the majority and White House election we have.”
This notion is insane on its face. Mail-in voting was expanded in many states as was early voting and other provisions to make it simpler to vote during the pandemic.
But Tapper did not push back at all, not even asking her what enormous measures they had to take or what voter suppression efforts were made.. These would be reasonable questions for any journalist to ask, but Tapper just let them go.
“Beyond that, even if we are successful in quote, unquote ‘out organizing voter suppression,’ which is a ridiculous premise on its face, Republicans are already laying the groundwork in installing state-level attorney generals and beyond to overturn the results of any state election that they frankly do not like in states where they have taken power,” she said.
“And so even if you are successful in out organizing, they’re laying the groundwork to not even certify the results of the election. They are holding essentially dress rehearsals in states like Arizona in order to do that. And I think we should be extremely alarmed and it will … we are setting it up to happen unless we pass very strong voter provisions against gerrymandering, voter protection rights not just in HR 4 but we need the retroactive provisions of HR 1,” she said.
For someone who has said that Donald Trump has undermined faith in free and fair elections, what does she think this does?
But even more ridiculous than her claims was the fact that Tapper, who is arguably the number one journalist on CNN, did not say a word to challenge any of her assertions.