Rep. Chip Roy is not backing down from his demand that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez apologize to Sen. Ted Cruz for her claim that he “almost had me murdered” by objecting to the Electoral College results. Ocasio-Cortez said compared the request to apologize to “tactics that abusers use” after revealing Monday night that she is a “survivor of sexual assault.”
“I was saddened to learn about the trauma that my colleague, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, described in recent days regarding sexual assault. Nobody should go through that, and I hope that she has received justice and experiences peace in the matter,” Roy, a Texas congressman, said in a statement to the Washington Examiner on Tuesday.
He continued: “As to her claims about my position, I will not be swayed from my beliefs about right and wrong — regarding this or anything else. Her comparison of my defense of colleagues to her circumstances were again inappropriate, but I am not going to participate in discussing her personal experiences as a political matter.”
“It does not change the fact that her allegation against Sen. Cruz was completely unacceptable for a Member of Congress to make against another member for engaging in free speech and debate about what our Constitution says about electors,” Roy said. “Nor does it change my position that she should apologize for and retract those remarks.”
Roy and 13 other House Republicans sent a request to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking that Ocasio-Cortez, a New York firebrand congresswoman, apologize to the Texas senator.
In a rejection of Cruz’s olive branch to Ocasio-Cortez by agreeing that there should be congressional hearings about the trading app Robinhood, Ocasio-Cortez blasted Cruz for his objection to certifying the Electoral College results: “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 tweeted.
In an Instagram livestream on Monday night, a teary-eyed Ocasio-Cortez described her experience in the days leading up to and during the Capitol mob attack.
“I am a survivor of sexual assault,” she said. “And I haven’t told many people that in my life.”
She took aim at those calling for people to move on from the Jan. 6 attack and referenced the calls from Roy and others to apologize to Cruz.
“Oh, and by the way, this past week, Ted Cruz and representatives Chip Roy, and, oh, by the way, some of the other representatives who actually encouraged people to threaten members of Congress, or tweeted out the location of the Speaker, are now telling me to apologize, for saying, and speak truth to what happened,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“These are the tactics of abusers. Or rather, these are the tactics that abusers use,” she said.
Roy publicly opposed moves by his Republican colleague to object to electors and attempted to expose hypocrisy in the move through a parliamentary procedure before Jan. 6. Cruz has since distanced himself from the battle over voter fraud concerns, saying in a podcast recently: “President Trump’s rhetoric, I think, went way too far over the line.”
“Members of this body have a duty to work to mend the tattered fabric of our Republic, stop this heightened rhetoric, stop the social media sniping, and move forward to actually do the work the American people sent us here to do,” Roy said in the statement on Tuesday.
