Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez branded Marjorie Taylor Greene “heinous” after the Republican claimed she “launched an insurrection” while addressing a group of Roe v Wade protesters outside the Supreme Court.
“I will explain this to you slowly: exercising our right to protest is not obstruction of Congress nor an attempt to overturn democracy,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “If one were a heinous enough person to do that, they’d likely seek a pardon for it too. But only one of us here has done that. And it ain’t me”
Ms Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, was referring to Ms Taylor Greene’s alleged participation in the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, for which she reportedly asked to be pardoned.
Ms Taylor Greene , a far-right Republican from Georgia, was exultant on Friday morning when the Court announced its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, tweeting “PRAISE GOD! Roe has been overturned!” above a video of her walking happily through the streets of the capital in which she can be heard saying, “This is so awesome. Oh my gosh.”
In the video Ms Taylor Greene tweeted of Ms Ocasio Cortez in which she accused the New Yorker of inciting insurrection, Ms Ocasio Cortez is participating in a call-and-response with a group of protesters of “Illegitimate!” and “Into the streets!”
It is not clear on what grounds Ms Taylor Greene believes this amounts to insurrection. The suggestion of the decision’s illegitimacy has been echoed by a number of activists and commentators who have noted that the Republican Party has won the popular vote in just one of the last seven presidential elections but that Republicans have appointed six of the nine Supreme Court justices.
Former President Donald Trump, who himself stands accused of inciting an insurrection on January 6, appointed three of those justices himself despite losing the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election to Hillary Clinton. None of those justices suggested in their confirmation hearings that they were considering overturning Roe.
In a seperate tweet on Friday, Ms Ocasio Cortez referenced those confirmation hearings.
“We should hear from Senators Murkowski, Collins, and Manchin if they believe there should be any consequences at all for misleading members of the US Senate in order to secure a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land,” she tweeted. “Otherwise Roe’s undoing is their legacy too.”
Protests have erupted across the nation in the aftermath of the Court’s decision on Friday, with crowds gathering not just in Washington, DC but also in cities like Austin and Philadelphia.
