Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) slammed President Trump on Thursday night after he called her a “Wack Job” on Twitter.
“Better than being a criminal who betrays our country,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in response, apparently referencing Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.
The progressive firebrand pushed back on Trump after the president shared a tweet from his son, Donald Trump Jr., who knocked the New York Democrat over her town hall Thursday.
Trump Jr. joked that a woman who had made comments about getting “rid of the babies” at Ocasio-Cortez’s town hall seemed like a “normal AOC supporter,” referring to her initials.
Ocasio-Cortez later tweeted that she believed the woman at the event may have had a mental condition, and ripped critics online who were widely sharing a clip of the woman’s comments in an effort to mock the Democratic lawmaker.{mosads}
“This person may have been suffering from a mental condition and it’s not okay that the right-wing is mocking her and potentially make her condition or crisis worse. Be a decent human being and knock it off,” she wrote.
Ocasio-Cortez explained that she “was concerned there was a woman in crisis & want to ensure we treat the situation compassionately.”
The woman at the town hall said in rambling remarks that Ocasio-Cortez’s support of the Green New Deal was not enough and said the lawmaker should campaign on trying to “get rid of the babies.”
An attendee at the event appeared to make a move to take away the microphone from the woman, while Ocasio-Cortez interjected to respond to her remarks, emphasizing her desire to combat climate change and saying “there are a lot of solutions that we have” and that there is “space for hope.”
Ocasio-Cortez and Trump have frequently feuded on Twitter, including earlier this year when Trump suggested that the New York Democrat and three other progressive female lawmakers of color should “go back” where they came from. The remark was widely condemned as racist.
Trump has received intense scrutiny in recent weeks over a phone call in which he asked Ukraine’s president to look into Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.