Ocasio-Cortez: Suggestion that Schumer is shutting down government to prevent primary challenge ‘insane’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday said the GOP’s accusation that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) shut down the federal government to stop himself from being challenged in a primary election was “such an insane suggestion.”

“In fact, it speaks to how desperate [congressional Republicans] are,” Ocasio-Cortez said at a CNN town hall with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). “This claim has been — House Speaker Mike Johnson‘s (R-La.) been saying this, [Senate Majority Leader] John Thune (R-S.D.) has been saying this. They are saying this because they are refusing to do their job. They‘re grasping for straws.”

She added that Johnson, Thune and other GOP leaders in Congress were “trying to make this about political tabloids and political intrigue and horse races,” distractions “that people are sick of in this country.”

“It is honestly astonishing to me that the speaker of the House would waste his time on something so inane and silly, instead of actually worrying about his own constituents who are suffering at the hands of his leadership.”

President Trump and Vice President Vance also have suggested Schumer is taking a hard-line position on the shutdown because he is worried about a primary challenge from Ocasio-Cortez.

Schumer agreed to a GOP spending bill to prevent a shutdown earlier this year, and came under heavy criticism from progressives.

“The reason why the American people’s government is shut down is because Chuck Schumer is listening to the far-left radicals in his party, because he’s terrified of a primary challenge,” Vance said at a White House press conference on Oct. 1.

The Senate voted a 10th time Thursday and failed to move forward on legislation to reopen the government.

If the shutdown carries on through November, it would surpass the longest shutdown in history, 35 days between December 2018 and January 2019 — during President Trump’s first administration.

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) previously said about the shutdown possibly being a long one. “I hope I’m wrong.”