Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said on Wednesday that “white supremacist sympathizers” sit the heart of the House’s GOP caucus and that their increasingly extremist views have gone unchecked with “no consequences” from House leadership.
“It increasingly seems, unfortunately, that in the House Republican caucus, Kevin McCarthy answers to these QAnon members of Congress, not the other way around,” Ocasio-Cortez told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes in an interview Wednesday night.
“There are no consequences in the Republican caucus for violence. No consequences for racism. No consequences for misogyny. No consequences for insurrection. And no consequences means that they condone it. It means that that silence is acceptance," says @AOC. pic.twitter.com/4jkKfb718K
— All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) January 28, 2021
The comments come after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) suggested that he would talk to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) in light of reports that the newly-elected lawmaker had endorsed executing Democrats in social media posts.
Those posts, first reported by CNN, included calls for assassination of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and executing FBI agents.
Ocasio-Cortez said on Wednesday that the top House Republican hadn’t gone far enough in taking seriously the threat of such behavior because it was a “core animating political energy” for the GOP base.
“When I hear that Rep. McCarthy is going to pull a member aside who has made white supremacist-sympathizing comments, the thing I think is: What is he going to tell them? Keep it up?” she said.
“Because there are no consequences in the Republican caucus for violence. There’s no consequences for racism. No consequences for misogyny. No consequences for insurrection. And no consequences means that they condone it. It means that that silence is acceptance,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Ocasio-Cortez was among the lawmakers who sheltered in place when a mob of former President Trump’s supported stormed the U.S. Capitol earlier this month.
Days after the deadly riot, the New York lawmaker described thinking she “was going to die” during the Jan. 6 attack and feeling unsafe among “white supremacist members of Congress” who she feared might disclose her location and allow her to be hurt or kidnapped.
