Rep. Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez alleged that there are currently “white supremacist sympathizer” members of the House Republican caucus.
“This term, there are legitimate white supremacist sympathizers that sit at the heart and at the core of the Republican Caucus in the House of Representatives,” the New York Democrat told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Wednesday.
“When you see someone like the House Minority Leader of the Republican Party respond to white supremacists’ vitriol coming from his own members, not with censure like they did with representative Steve King of Iowa, not with, you know, being stripped of committees, not with any consequence, you have to wonder who actually has that power,” Ocasio-Cortez continued.
The congresswoman then linked Rep. Kevin McCarthy to the QAnon conspiracy theory, saying that he answers to members of Congress who support that group, and not the other way around.
“When I hear that Rep. McCarthy is going to pull a member aside who has made white supremacist sympathizing comments, the thing that I think is, ‘What is he going to tell them, keep it up?'” Ocasio-Cortez continued, presumably referencing controversy surrounding newly-elected Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
“Because there are no consequences in the Republican Caucus for violence. There’s no consequence for racism, no consequence for misogyny, no consequence for insurrection. No consequence means that they condone it. It means that that silence is acceptance, and they want it because they know that it is a core animating political energy for them,” she said.
AOC says that “there are legitimate white supremacist sympathizers that sit at the heart and at the core of the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives” and that “@GOPLeader Kevin McCarthy answers to these Qanon members of Congress, not the other way around.” pic.twitter.com/vDGc0GOAiC
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 28, 2021
Earlier this month, Ocasio-Cortez reacted to Trump supporters storming the Capitol by saying she didn’t feel safe as she hunkered down in the building because of her “white supremacist” Republican colleagues.
“There’s a secure extraction point and a secure room that you may have heard a lot of people, members, give interviews from,” she said. “Republican members of Congress didn’t wear masks. They refused to wear masks in that enclosed, secure location, and now we are on, just in the last 24 to 48 hours, our third Democratic member of Congress who just tested positive for COVID.”
On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi echoed the sentiment that Democrats are fearful of Republicans on Capitol Hill and pushed for funding for extra security, saying, “The enemy is within the House of Representatives of a threat that members are concerned about, in addition to what is happening outside.”
