Ocasio-Cortez: I Was Not Safe in Secure Location with House Republicans — They Sympathize with the ‘White Supremacist Cause’

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said Friday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” that she could not stay in the secure location with Republican members of Congress during the Capitol Hill riots because they sympathize with white supremacist cause.

Maddow said, “Let’s talk about that in terms of members of Congress and congressional staff as well. You are saying that you didn’t feel safe going to that extraction point because you believe, knowing them, that there were members of Congress you didn’t trust not to betray your location and put you in danger in that way. Can you talk a bit more about that, why you believed that, if what you believed about that, what you know about that is something that should be part of the investigation? Or is it part of the investigation that’s been announced into whether members of Congress are complicit here?”

Ocasio-Cortez said, “I can’t speak as to what is currently under investigation specifically or not, but there are members of Congress that have made public comments. Comments like that Muslim Americans should not hold public office. They’ve made public comments that are quite closely aligned with the beliefs of white supremacists and white supremacist sympathizer organizations. These are all public record. And, you know, people of color are not safe around any individual who, frankly, sympathizes with a white supremacist cause. And it doesn’t matter if you’ve been elected to Congress or not. It is a complete abdication of any responsibility that we all have to protect and defend and be there for each other as human beings and certainly as Americans. So it wasn’t safe. And the implications of that are quite dire. To not be in a secure location because being in the insecure location seems like a safer bet than being in a secure location. I mean, it’s pretty scary. I can also say I was not the only member of Congress that felt that way. You know, not every member was in that secure room.”

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