House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy urged Democrats to move on from the spat between Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Ted Yoho.
During his weekly press conference on Thursday, McCarthy said he didn’t understand why Ocasio-Cortez did not accept Yoho’s apology, which Ocasio-Cortez claims was nothing of the sort.
Shortly before the California Republican addressed the flareup, the freshman congresswoman from New York spoke on the House floor for nearly 10 minutes talking about her clash with Yoho, describing it as being part of a pattern of men “dehumaniz[ing]” women through power. This happened one day after Yoho, who hails from Florida, took the House floor and apologized for how the incident was “misunderstood” by the press.
“I watched that Congressman Yoho went to the floor — apologized not once, but twice to the congresswoman from New York. I watched the Majority Leader of the House accept his apology,” McCarthy said. “I also think when someone apologizes they should be forgiven. I don’t understand that we’re going to take another hour on the floor to debate whether the apology was good enough or not. He said, ‘I was sorry.’ … But the Democrats won’t take an hour to debate the accountability of China.”
My questions to Democrats: Are you willing to step up to stop these escalating threats from China? Or will you continue to defend the actions of the Chinese Communist Party? https://t.co/ScuX1dC4FO
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) July 23, 2020
“People should not be called names. People should be treated with respect regardless of philosophical differences,” the California congressman added. “I just think in a new world, in a new age, we now determine whether we accept when someone says ‘I’m sorry,’ if it’s a good enough apology for them.”
The Hill first reported that Yoho accosted Ocasio-Cortez with insults on the steps of the U.S. Capitol after she suggested that crime had surged in New York City over the summer because of poverty. As the two departed, Yoho reportedly called the freshman congresswoman a “f—ing bitch.” Yoho denies that he used vulgar language to insult the congresswoman.
Ocasio-Cortez, during her speech on Thursday, noted that she’s been accosted with similar language many times before and that such behavior shows “that this issue is not about one incident. It is cultural. It is a culture of lack of impunity, of accepting of violence and haven’t language against women, an entire structure of power that supports that.”
She also brought up the fact that Yoho referenced his wife and two daughters, one of whom is similar in age to Ocasio-Cortez.
“Now, what I am here to say is that this harm that Mr. Yoho levied, he tried to levy against me, was not just an incident directed at me, but when you do that to any woman, what Mr. Yoho did was give permission to other men to do that to his daughters,” she said.
