Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) made an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers on Thursday night to answer questions about her politics, her experience in Congress, and that weird obsession that Fox News has with the young congresswoman from New York.
.@AOC on her Fox News haters: "Why are so many grown men just obsessed with this 29-year-old?" https://t.co/XEkHzq3twc
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) March 22, 2019
Turn on Fox News at any time of the day or night and watch for one hour. There is no chance you won’t hear the freshman representative’s name mentioned and raked over the coals. Meyers asked Ocasio-Cortez why she thinks she’s the subject of nearly every hourly news cycle on Fox News.
‘“I mean, it’s weird. Like, why are so many grown men just obsessed with this 29-year-old?” she replied, to laughs from the crowd. “No, but I think it’s really funny, and the conspiracy theories are great.”’
"One of the side effects of this Fox News lunacy is that other actual members of Congress believe it, and see it uncritically." —@AOC when asked about the "bad information" Fox News spreads about her https://t.co/SPT6C2PGtU
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) March 22, 2019
She was also asked about the Fox News fearmongering around her and her policy ideas, especially the accusations that she is some kind of Manchurian candidate sent by some evil socialist cabal to put a pretty face on socialism (because that’s not at all sexist). Ocasio-Cortez, who has received massive numbers of death threats thanks to that fearmongering, laughed off the conspiracy theory.
“I’m not a Manchurian Candidate, but I do have amazing staff—and in no part thanks to the fact that we pay a living wage in our office,” offered Ocasio-Cortez. “We don’t pay less than $52,000 a year, which means so far two of my staffers have been able to quit their second jobs in restaurants and be fully present at work. And so I hope it’s a lesson to the folks on the other side of the aisle that if you pay your staff, you’ll be prepared.”
This is how the future voted. This is what people 18-25 said in casting their votes. We must keep this flame alight and nurture this vision. pic.twitter.com/ivuXrar869
— Eliza Byard (@EByard) November 9, 2016
The reason for the Fox News freak-out over the young, Latina congresswoman is written clearly in the graphic above. She, and other millenial congresswomen like her, herald a new phase of American politics. The party of old white men is quickly becoming a thing of the past.
Ocasio-Cortez also said that her Republican colleagues, desperate to cling to times more favorable to their backwards thinking, have fully embraced the nonsense.
“Well, it is funny because one of the side effects of this Fox News lunacy is that other actual members of Congress believe it, and see it uncritically,” she explained. “And so I was on the [House] floor once and this guy came up to me and said, ‘Is it true that you got ten million dollars from Netflix?’ and I’m like, ‘No… what else do you not know! This is concerning!’”
See some of Ocasio-Cortez’s appearance below:
Featured image screenshot via YouTube
