Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) condemned Rep. Ted Yoho’s (R-FL) alleged attack of Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), where he reportedly called her a “f-cking b-tch” after a confrontation over legislation.
Mitchell said, “According to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, after votes yesterday, she was really attacked by a colleague, Representative Ted Yoho of Florida, who called her a terrible name, a really outrageous attack on her using the ‘f-word.’ He’s denying it now to us but apparently there were some witnesses to it, it was overheard by a reporter. Are women members of Congress being attacked this way from colleagues?”
Bass said, “Well, I have never seen or heard of anything like that before. I’m so disappointed in Representative Yoho. I work with him, we’re on the Foreign Affairs Committee together. I’m glad you’re raising it because just 15 minutes ago I spoke to Alexandria and I told her that I heard what had happened, that I thought it was completely unacceptable and I think we need to do something about it. After I spoke to her, I spoke to Brenda Lawrence, who is chair of the Women’s Caucus. I said, we need to come together because, as far as I was concerned, it was a verbal assault.”
She added, “Something like that should never happen. I do understand he’s not running for reelection, but he cannot get away with behavior like that. She told me a few minutes ago that that wasn’t the first time, he’s done this now a couple of times. Right after the first blow-up, a few hours later, he did it again. And so we just can’t have this. I know we’re going to be putting our heads together and figuring out how we will respond, but there will be a response.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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