After he helped spread the false election-fraud claims that fanned the January 6 Capitol insurrection, it's understandable that some of Sen. Ted Cruz's coworkers would harbor hard feelings.
Case in point: a Twitter exchange Thursday between Cruz and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., that started with the Texas Republican agreeing with her.
Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, tweeted that she supported a hearing to get to the bottom of stock trading app Robinhood's decision to restrict trading of companies popular on a Reddit subforum. (Read this if you need a backgrounder on the controversy.)
Cruz replied, saying "Fully agree."
Fully agree. 👇 https://t.co/rW38zfLYGh
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 28, 2021
Ocasio-Cortez — who was reportedly the subject of an online death threat from a man arrested for his role in the coup attempt — was swift and savage with her response.
"I am happy to work with Republicans on this issue where there's common ground, but you almost had me murdered 3 weeks ago so you can sit this one out," she replied to Cruz, adding that she's willing to work with GOPers who weren't involved in instigating the riot.
"In the meantime if you want to help, you can resign," she added.
I am happy to work with Republicans on this issue where there’s common ground, but you almost had me murdered 3 weeks ago so you can sit this one out.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 28, 2021
Happy to work w/ almost any other GOP that aren’t trying to get me killed.
In the meantime if you want to help, you can resign. https://t.co/4mVREbaqqm
It's easy to see why AOC would be, well, a little touchy about the whole fucking thing.
Donald Trump relentlessly targeted her and other female lawmakers of color in his inflammatory rhetoric, and she's talked in detail about her concern that the pro-Trump mob at the Capitol had her in its crosshairs.
“I can tell you that I had a very close encounter where I thought I was going to die,” Ocasio-Cortez said the week after the riot. “I did not know if I was going to make it to the end of that day alive.”
Sounds like we can safely count AOC in the growing chorus of voices that think Cruz's best course of action is to leave Washington and let the adults run the show.
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