Ocasio-Cortez lets loose on 'unhinged' Trump name-dropping her at the debate
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) delivered a signature Twitter takedown after she was name-checked by President Donald Trump over her climate policy during Thursday’s nationally televised presidential debate.
Ocasio-Cortez and her progressive House colleagues Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) were called out by the president in his debate with Democratic nominee Joe Biden in Nashville.
“You know who developed it? AOC plus three,” the president said of Biden’s climate plan.
“They know nothing about the climate. I mean she’s got a good line of stuff, but she knows nothing about the climate, and they’re all hopping through hoops for AOC plus three. Not a real plan. It costs $100 trillion.”
Trump has repeatedly conflated Biden’s plans to mitigate climate change with the set of policy proposals known as the Green New Deal, introduced by Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in 2019. Biden has offered praise for it, but his own policy is different.
Biden appointed Ocasio-Cortez as co-chair of his climate policy task force earlier this year, which released a number of proposals in July that make no mention of the Green New Deal. His proposals include moving all electric power off fossil fuels by 2035, increasing energy efficiency by upgrading 4 million buildings and 2 million homes over four years, installing 500 million solar panels in the next five years and shifting major cities toward zero-emission public transportation options.
Ocasio-Cortez took Trump’s shoutout as an opportunity to point out far more than four lawmakers offered support for the Green New Deal:
It’s actually AOC plus 115 because that’s how many House and Senate members have cosponsored the most ambitious climate legislation in American history.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 23, 2020
I am so deeply proud of & grateful for each + every one of my House and Senate colleagues who stand for our future & champion the #GreenNewDeal, the boldest climate plan in US history.
Here they are below. If you can, tweet them a thank you tonight:https://t.co/1pYcjeCzDt— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 23, 2020
She also looked back to her former job prior to her election in 2018.
If someone had told her then that an “unhinged President of the United States would be repeatedly saying my name at the 2020 debate, I would’ve brought them some water and told them to sober up,” she tweeted.
If someone told me 3 years ago, while I was waitressing to help my family stay afloat, that in a few short years an unhinged President of the United States would be repeatedly saying my name at the 2020 debate, I would’ve brought them some water and told them to sober up.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 23, 2020
And she pointed out that Trump’s use of her nickname was intended to convey disrespect:
I wonder if Republicans understand how much they advertise their disrespect of women in debates when they consistently call women members of Congress by nicknames or first names while using titles & last names when referring to men of = stature.
Women notice. It conveys a lot.— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 23, 2020
I wonder if Republicans understand how much they advertise their disrespect of women in debates when they consistently call women members of Congress by nicknames or first names while using titles & last names when referring to men of = stature.
Women notice. It conveys a lot.— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 23, 2020
Pressley also chimed in, tweeting a picture of the four women Trump called out:
Living in his head rent free is something.https://t.co/8wZi9JrRsEpic.twitter.com/Mimw04BOel
— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) October 23, 2020
But her colleague pointed out there’s something much better than living in Trump’s head rent free:
Sisterhood is everything. pic.twitter.com/KxfdnAxuq0
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 23, 2020
Joy is an act of resistance. pic.twitter.com/1WYixdq4qT
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) October 23, 2020
Omar had her own view on the shoutout ― and Trump’s bizarre imaginings of climate policy.
Calling an emergency meeting with the Squad. #smallwindowspic.twitter.com/pps2cPRLem
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) October 23, 2020
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.