Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday fired back at Jerry Falwell Jr. after the Liberty University president threatened her over his cows at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
Falwell Jr. told the crowd at CPAC on Friday that he has one hundred cows and Ocasio-Cortez better not take them, suggesting that he may hurt her if she attempted to.
"My boys always had guns in their hands," the lawyer and university administrator said, while sitting on a panel next to the president's son Donald Trump Jr. "That's not something you teach them, that's something they're born with."
"I've got 100 cows, you just let Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez show up at my house and try and take my cows away...." Falwell Jr. warned, prompting the audience to break into laughter and applause.
Cool cool - this is fine, totally acceptable and normal rhetoric; legitimized by the presence of members of Congress and the President. 👍🏽
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 5, 2019
Let me guess: no apology is necessary here, because they’ve simply been “misunderstood.” https://t.co/5WSo7aELR9
Ocasio-Cortez sarcastically responded to the threat on Tuesday, saying that this type of behavior is "legitimized by the presence of members of Congress and the President."
"Cool cool - this is fine, totally acceptable and normal rhetoric; legitimized by the presence of members of Congress and the President ," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "Let me guess: no apology is necessary here, because they've simply been 'misunderstood.'"
Conservative pundits have been employing a new rhetoric in an attempt to discredit self-described socialist Ocasio-Cortez and the Green New Deal: She wants to take America's burgers away.
The beef was sparked after Ocasio-Cortez said earlier this month on Showtime's Desus & Mero that her efforts to combat climate change would require the meat industry to minimize their greenhouse gas emissions . "We gotta address factory farming," she said. "Maybe we shouldn't be eating a hamburger for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."
Shortly after, conservatives began accusing Ocasio-Cortez of wanting to take hamburgers away from Americans. "They want to rebuild your home, they want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved," former White House national security aide Sebastian Gorka said at CPAC.
"You are on the front lines of the war against communism coming back to America under the guise of 'Democratic Socialism'... Donald J. Trump is never going to let it happen, and as he said to Congress, America will never be a socialist country!"
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