Like so many other mornings, this Thursday morning, President Donald Trump spent some time winding himself up into a rage at his opponents. This time, he was on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo, where he — among other rants — went on a tirade against prominent progressive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who not too long ago won the Democratic Congressional primary race in her heavily “blue” district, essentially ensuring that she’ll get another term. This Thursday morning, Trump called Ocasio-Cortez “not even a smart person,” which the Congresswoman promptly took Trump to task over. Besides the obvious sexist undertones, that derision is rich coming from Trump, who just recently suggested that the 1918 influenza pandemic may have ended World War II, which actually ended in the 1940s.
Trump says the pandemic of 1918 probably ended World War II 🤔
— Kathryn Watson (@kathrynw5) August 10, 2020
Trump said:
‘[Biden] is going to give not tax increases, massive tax increases to pay for AOC’s plan. AOC was a poor student. I won’t say where she went to school — it doesn’t matter. This is not even a smart person, other than she’s got a good line of stuff. I mean, she goes out and she yaps, and they’re all afraid of her, because if you notice, all of these progressives are beating the regular Democrats.’
Quick question! Would Trump have said that a male opponent of his “goes out… and yaps”? Probably not, to say the least. Check out his comments below:
Trump on AOC: "AOC was a poor student … this is not even a smart person, other than she's got a good line of stuff. I mean, she goes out and she yaps." pic.twitter.com/usijJRqlqK
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 13, 2020
Ocasio-Cortez actually directly responded to the president’s criticism, which she has been the target of in the past. Infamously, Trump once insisted that she, along with other women of color in Congress, should “go back” to where they came from. Ocasio-Cortez was born in the United States; Trump was peddling racist animosity, plain and simple.
This time, Ocasio-Cortez commented:
‘Let’s make a deal, Mr. President: You release your college transcript, I’ll release mine, and we’ll see who was the better student. Loser has to fund the Post Office.’
Let’s make a deal, Mr. President:
You release your college transcript, I’ll release mine, and we’ll see who was the better student.
Loser has to fund the Post Office. https://t.co/OXnmJxufIw
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 13, 2020
Funding for the Postal Service has been one of the many sticking points amidst negotiations over a potential new Coronavirus-connected economic relief package. During the same Thursday Fox interview in which he disparaged Ocasio-Cortez, Trump also suggested that he opposed funding for the Post Office specifically in order to undercut the usage of mail-in ballots — or, as he called it, “universal mail-in voting,” which is his boogeyman-style description for the process. (The U.S. is not and has never been set to use universal mail-in voting.)
He's so brazen, so emboldened that he's now bragging about the plot to steal the election: “They don’t have the money to do the universal mail-in voting. So therefore, they can’t do it…. Are they going to do it even if they don’t have the money?”https://t.co/DZnG2W7JI1
— Ned Price (@nedprice) August 13, 2020
