New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, sparred with Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican, regarding the Georgia representative’s multiple offers to debate.
Greene shared a CNN segment featuring the New York representative discussing newly elected Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy’s committee appointees including fellow New York representative George Santos, Arizona representative Paul Gosar, along with the Georgia representative.
Ocasio-Cortez claimed the aforementioned appointees had “incited violence against specific members” of Congress.
The Georgia representative noted Ocasio-Cortez had previously been asked to debate “repeatedly.”
“But you go on [CNN] and lie about me. When are you going to be an adult and actually debate me on policy instead of run your mouth like a teenage girl?” Greene wrote.
Ocasio-Cortez acknowledged Greene’s response by noting both representatives were members of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. She further claimed she had “debated” the Georgia representative this week.
“I don’t blame you if you forgot. You spent almost no time there,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “In the few minutes you did show up, you claimed one elementary school got *$5 billion dollars* to teach CRT.”
Hey there! In case you forgot, we sit on the same committee, which debated for the first time this week.
I don’t blame you if you forgot. You spent almost no time there. In the few minutes you did show up, you claimed one elementary school got *$5 billion dollars* to teach CRT🤣 https://t.co/pPwI4Irz9c
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 3, 2023
“Yeah it’s busy in the majority remember that? So can you explain why you sickos in NY abused Covid relief funds for things like Drag Queen story time?” Greene followed up. “Was it a good time to brainwash kids and lie to them about gender when your state forced them to stay home from school?”
The Georgia representative provided screenshots of previous tweets reporting figures spent by New York:
Can you explain why $100 million dollars in Covid relief went to whatever the hell is [sic] “tree equity” is? I’m from Georgia, [AOC]. None of our trees are crying and throwing funded protest about tree inequality. But a lot of our businesses got shut down because of a bioweapon. [AOC], can you explain to the American taxpayers why your communist state leaders decided to abuse $9 billion in Covid cash for “staff development” on privilege and equity warriors? Asking on behalf of Americans strapped for cash and chained in $31 trillion in Gov debt.
Ocasio-Cortez further noted criticism of Santos, who has been accused of lying about his past by allegedly performing in drag along and suggesting he was “Jew-ish.”
“I never claimed to be Jewish,” Santos told the New York Post in an exclusive interview. “I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was ‘Jew-ish.'”
In 2021, Gosar was removed from committee assignments by former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi after sharing a video meme featuring the Arizona representative, along with other Republican representatives, attacking villains with photoshopped Democrat representatives’ faces from the anime Attack on Titan.
Ocasio Cortez also suggested Greene was “engaging in 9/11 conspiracy theories,” referencing the Georgia representative’s 2018 comments reported by Media Matters.
“We had witnessed 9/11, the terrorist attack in New York and the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania and the so-called plane that crashed into the Pentagon,” Greene said. “It’s odd there’s never any evidence shown for a plane in the Pentagon. … I’m not going to dive into the 9/11 conspiracy. But 9/11 had happened. Our country was very much into a war.”
In 2020, Greene further criticized an apparent lack of evidence saying, “some people claimed a missile hit the Pentagon.”
“The problem is our government lies to us so much to protect the Deep State, it’s hard sometimes to know what is real and what is not.”
The then-freshman Georgia representative, similar to Gosar, was removed from her committee assignments in early 2021 by Pelosi.