Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not hold back in a Sunday interview on “Inside With Jen Psaki,” pinning House speaker Kevin McCarthy for kowtowing to Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.
“McCarthy is doing her bidding,” said the state representative of New York.
When Psaki asked Ocasio-Cortez if McCarthy is actually running his caucus, the politician cut straight to the point: “He’s not,” she said. “I think you’ve got Marjorie Taylor Greene running the caucus, and she makes very common public statements to that effect. Every time something irks her, she indicates that McCarthy is doing her bidding.”
Ocasio-Cortez went on to say that it was “very clear” that McCarthy is not in control and that the current speaker is “stuck between having to please the most racist and heinous elements of his party with having to maintain a majority, and he’s choosing to side with the extremists.” She also said she did not believe McCarthy will have enough votes to pass his debt limit proposal.
“He’s kind of brought himself up a creek without a paddle,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Those weren’t the only fiery words the New York representative had for her Republican colleagues. When prompted about the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Ocasio-Cortez emphasized she did not believe the GOP will stop at this case.
“They will not stop just at women’s rights. I believe that what we are seeing is the concerted rollback of civil liberties in general,” Ocasio-Cortez said. She pointed to the right-wing attacks against trans rights and LGBTQ rights as evidence of this rollback, adding, “We have even seen Republican members of the Senate insinuate that interracial marriage is something that should be up for debate.”
According to the politician, the party’s focus on these culture wars is evidence that it is missing a crucial element: a plan. “In order to distract from their lack of preparation and their lack of vision, they are trying to attack some of the most vulnerable people in our country,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Psaki also pressed the politician about the recent Fox News v. Dominion case, which settled out of court for $787.5 million. In light of this settlement, Ocasio-Cortez said that broadcast television, like Fox News, should be “subject to federal law, federal regulation in terms of what’s allowed on air and what isn’t.”
“When you look at what Tucker Carlson and some of these other folks on Fox do, it is very, very clearly incitement of violence,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “That is the line that I think we have to be willing to contend with.”
