Observers praised New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for appearing to have a long, cordial conversation on Tuesday in Congress with Paul Gosar, an Arizona Republican who was censured in 2021 for posting a violent anime parody video showing him killing AOC with two swords.
“Paul Gosar was censured by the House for tweeting a video of AOC being killed,” one Twitter user wrote of the exchange. “This speaks to her magnanimity.”
Things were far less cordial in the House chamber itself on Tuesday morning, where Republican House Speaker candidate Kevin McCarthy failed to secure enough votes from his own party for the speaker’s gavel in the first round, a sign of divisions within the GOP caucus.
Others wondered what the pair or representatives might be discussing on the sidelines.
“Oh to hear this conversation right now,” quipped Heather Caygle, an editor at Punchbowl News.
At the time of the incident, Representative Ocasio-Cortez sharply criticised the Arizona Republican for his violent rhetoric.
“It’s pretty cut and dry: does anyone in this chamber find this behavior acceptable?” she said in a speech on the House fllor. “Would you allow that in your home? And if it’s not accepted there, why is it accepted here?”
Representative Gosar, meanwhile, declined to apologise but said he had been misinterpretted.
“I do not espouse violence towards anyone. I never have. It was not my purpose to make anyone upset,” Mr Gosar said following the uproar over the video.
He claimed the clip wasn’t an attack on AOC, but rather about the “policy battle regarding amnesty for tens of millions of illegal aliens.”
Mr Gosar’s family, meanwhile, condemned his remarks.
“I believe he’s dangerous, unhinged and is reckless and is somebody that, as we’ve I’ve said before, needs to not only be censored, but he needs to be expelled,” his brother Tim Gosar said in 2021 about the incident.
