Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was reduced to tears during an Instagram livestream while trying to draw a parallel between pro-Trump protests at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and unspecified sexual assaults she claims to have survived in the past. Ocasio-Cortez went to claim that she hid in a bathroom and feared for her life during the protests, during which a Trump supporter was shot and killed and hundreds more were arrested.
“I am at a full ten, fight or flight, thought I was going to die, like, ten minutes ago, then thought I was going to die again because I have to tell you when I was banging on this door, I had thought that … the building had been breached and there were people walking the hallways,” said Ocasio-Cortez, 31.
“And I’m banging on this door, and I’m thinking, and I’m fully expecting, um, one of these insurrectionists to turn the corner with a gun, and that it would be over again,” the female freshman rep. recalled. Civilian possession of firearms is banned within the District of Columbia, and none of the pro-Trump protesters who entered the Capitol were armed.
.@AOC describes sheltering in @katieporteroc's office, and Katie helping her get her staff's gym clothes to blend into the crowd. They stayed there until the night. "I was preparing for one of the wings of the building to explode, we had gotten intel there were bombs found" pic.twitter.com/A76p52fnSb
— People for Bernie (@People4Bernie) February 2, 2021
Ocasio-Cortez went on to say that she “tore through” a colleagues office “like a madwoman,” scouring closets for places to hide, even as Congressional colleagues remained calm and believed there was no imminent threat to their lives.
“I’m a survivor of sexual assault, and I haven’t told many people that in my life,” Ocasio-Cortez sobbed, gesticulating to add emphasis. “But when we go through trauma, trauma compounds on each other.”
The congresswoman continued, “These episodes can compound on one another, there’s no, you know, something really big happening to you, and then you ‘deal with it’ and you move on and then when something else happens to you, you deal with that and then when you, and then you move on [sic].”
.@AOC Thank you.
pic.twitter.com/U5bFkAqfkX
— the crying of thot 49
(@welivinasociety) February 2, 2021
Ocasio-Cortez has been praised on Twitter by Democrat activists for comparing the Jan. 6 Capitol protests, during which multiple Trump supporters died violent deaths and no members of Congress were harmed, to an act of sexual assault.
The New York rep. has also accused Republican colleagues of “trying to get me killed,” without providing further explanation.