In a new interview with The New Yorker, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said she is “as powerful as a man,” and that infuriates her GOP critics.
Ocasio-Cortez made that comment when presented with a quote by Ashley Reese of Jezebel about women in politics: “Women are often either characterized as hideous harpies like Hillary Clinton or pretty idiots whose ‘craziness’ is bound up with their sex appeal. … To her critics, Ocasio-Cortez is firmly in the pretty idiot category.”
{mosads}Ocasio-Cortez told The New Yorker she agreed with the quote and “predicted it from day one.”
“The idea that a woman can be as powerful as a man is something that our society can’t deal with. But I am as powerful as a man and it drives them crazy,” Ocasio-Cortez told the magazine.
She added that she believes she gets extra backlash from President Trump based on her background and policy proposals.
“I can see Trump being enormously upset that a 29-year-old Latina, who is the daughter of a domestic worker, is helping to build the case to get his financial records. I think that adds insult to injury to him.”
Ocasio-Cortez commented that she tries to avoid watching Trump on TV because he “relies and thrives on attention,” and denying it makes him “weaker.” She also said she was not impressed with his State of the Union address last month.
“He is such a small, mediocre person,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I grew up with a real romanticism about America. I grew up in a first-generation household where your parents give up everything, and for me, America was the greatest thing ever to exist. To be there on the floor of the House was beyond anything my parents would have ever dreamed of. But the person behind the podium was so unskilled. It was kind of sad.”
The freshman lawmaker has become a rising star in the Democratic Party and drawn widespread attention for her self-proclaimed democratic socialist proposals.
The attention has put her in the middle of feuds with prominent Republicans, including Trump.
In the past, Trump has swiped at “socialist” policies, and the two have exchanged barbs over the proposed “Green New Deal.” Ocasio-Cortez and Trump also clashed after she called him a “racist.”