A Republican congressman issued a profanity-laced insult toward Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the Capitol, but the freshman congresswoman shot back in a tweet on Tuesday: ‘B*****s get stuff done.’
In a contentious exchange with the progressive congresswoman on the steps of the Capitol on Monday, Representative Ted Yoho, 65, was overheard by a reporter with The Hill calling Ocasio-Cortez, 30, a ‘f***ing b***h,’ according to a report published today.
The progressive New York City lawmaker was ascending the stairs to cast her vote on the same day the House stood in a moment of silence to honor the late Rep. John Lewis after he died Friday months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
‘You are out of your freaking mind,’ Yoho told Ocasio-Cortez in the brief interaction.
The Florida Republican also called AOC, as she was dubbed early on in her political career, ‘disgusting’ for recent comments where she said the spike in New York City crime in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic are due to increased levels of poverty and unemployment.
Ocasio-Cortez detailed to Yahoo News Tuesday that the representative put his finger in her face.
I never spoke to Rep. Yoho before he decided to accost me on the steps of the nation’s Capitol yesterday.
Believe it or not, I usually get along fine w/ my GOP colleagues. We know how to check our legislative sparring at the committee door.
But hey, “b*tches” get stuff done. 🤷🏽♀️ https://t.co/WlG3xccwR7
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 21, 2020
‘He kept muttering insults at me as I was walking away, but I didn’t try to make it out,’ she explained. ‘I thought he had said something but didn’t assume that’s what he said.’
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called the behavior ‘despicable’ and demanded Tuesday that Yoho make a personal amends as well as a speech on the House floor apologizing to Ocasio-Cortez.
‘Mr. Yoho owes not only the congresswoman an apology, but also an apology on the floor of the House of Representatives,’ Hoyer told reporters.
‘It was the act of a bully,’ the Maryland Democrat continued of Yoho. ‘Bottom line, I think it was despicable conduct. It needs to be sanctioned.’
Ocasio-Cortez told Yoho, who was joined by Texas Rep. Roger Williams on the Capitol stairs, that he was being ‘rude.’
As the two walked away from each other, Yoho said audibly: ‘F***ing b***h.’
She later expanded on her response on Twitter following the release of the report over the exchange.
‘I never spoke to Rep. Yoho before he decided to accost me on the steps of the nation’s Capitol yesterday,’ the social-media active lawmaker posted Tuesday morning. ‘Believe it or not, I usually get along fine w/ my GOP colleagues.’
‘We know how to check our legislative sparring at the committee door,’ she asserted.
‘But hey, ‘b*tches’ get stuff done,’ Ocasio-Cortez quipped, adding a shrugging emoji.
The Hill reported that Williams was in ear-shot of the whole back-and-forth, but when approached about the specifics of the comments said he wasn’t paying attention to it at the time.
‘I was actually thinking, as I was walking down the stairs, I was thinking about some issues I’ve got in my district that need to get done,’ Williams said. ‘I don’t know what their topic was. There’s always a topic, isn’t there?’
Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t buying the excuse.
‘Gotta love Republican courage from Rep @RogerWilliamsTX: when he undeniably sees another man engaged in virulent harassment of a young woman, just pretend you never saw it in the most cartoonish manner possible and keep pushing,’ she tweeted, adding in a parentheses, ‘(He’s lying, by the way. He joined in w/ Yoho)’.
‘What’s wild to me @RogerWilliamsTX is why would you blatantly lie to a reporter who saw this exchange?’ she continued in calling out the Republican representative. ‘You were yelling at me too, about ‘throwing urine.’
Ocasio-Cortez explained the incident in more detail in a direct message with Yahoo News on Twitter.
‘When I pass other members on the steps, regardless of party, I usually nod or say hello if I’m able,’ the progressive lawmaker detailed. ‘Out of nowhere, Yoho comes up to me and puts his finger in my face and flies off in a rage.’
‘He started going off about shootings and bread and nonsense, calling me crazy, shameful, out of my mind, etc.,’ she continued.
‘At first I tried to talk to him, but that just made him yell over me more,’ she claimed.
‘Williams then started joining in, yelling things at me and said something about throwing urine — I don’t know what that was about,’ she added. ‘I said he was being rude and that this was unbelievable and started to walk away.’
She asserted that it was Yoho who called her ‘rude’ and not the other way around, and said following the interaction she ‘just kept walking to my vote.’
Yoho insisted later that he did not use the vernacular outlined by The Hill.
Instead, he said he used the word ‘bulls**t,’ and said Ocasio-Cortez is trying to use the brief exchange for her personal benefit.
‘He did not call Rep. Ocasio-Cortez what has been reported in The Hill or any name for that matter,’ Yoho’s office told a right-leaning paper. ‘It sounds better for the Hill newspaper and gets more media attention to say he called her a name – which he did not do.’
‘It is unfortunate that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez is using this exchange to gain personal attention,’ his office added.
‘Instead,’ it insisted, ‘he made a brief comment to himself as he walked away summarizing what he believes her polices to be: bulls**t.’
Yoho has served in Congress since 2013, but in December 2019 the Florida lawmaker announced he will not seek reelection in November.
Yoho’s comments when confronting AOC were about remarks she made earlier this month during a virtual town hall where she defended the rise in crime in New York City as people ‘stealing bread to feed their children during record unemployment.’
Police data shows that shootings in the city last month were up 130 per cent this year – from 89 shootings last year to 205 this year.
But Ocasio-Cortez, who represents parts of Queens and The Bronx, questioned: ‘Do we think this has to do with the fact that there’s record unemployment in the United States right now?’
‘Maybe this has to do with the fact that people aren’t paying their rent and are scared to pay their rent,’ she continued. ‘And so they go out, and they need to feed their child and they don’t have money so they feel like they either need to shoplift some bread or go hungry.’
The comments were widely chastised by Republicans, who pointed to the rise in violent crime rather than shoplifting or petty theft.
‘That kind of confrontation hasn’t ever happened to me — ever,’ Ocasio-Cortez, who is often criticized publicly by GOP lawmakers, told The Hill of the in-person interaction. ‘I’ve never had that kind of abrupt, disgusting kind of disrespect levied at me.’