The Republican challenging Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress in New York boasted on a conservative talk show that she was banned from her granddaughter’s school.
Tina Forte, a QAnon booster who won the Republican primary for the right to face Ms Ocasio-Cortez with just 1,530 votes in August, referenced her ban on an appearance on The Joe Pags show.
“I have no shame and I have no filter,” Ms Forte said. “Zero filter. That’s why I am where I am right now. I got popular because I said things that other people were afraid to say. I’m not afraid to say it. I was banned from school property for nine months, from my granddaughter’s school, because I call everyone out.”
“Right,” host Joe Pagliarulo said.
“I have no problem saying it,” Ms Forte continued. “I make a stand. I tell people, ‘Stand with me.’”
Ms Forte, who election forecaster FiveThirtyEight gives less than a one per cent chance of prevailing in November, has myriad links to the far right. She posted a photograph of herself with the leader of the Proud Boys and a video of herself participating in a pro-Donald Trump January 6 event to Facebook in recent years and shared QAnon slogans.
Ms Forte’s website says that her aim in running is “Stopping Radical Socialists from Destroying the American Dream”, because progressive politicians like Ms Ocasio-Cortez “routinely degrade America and the dream it represents”.
“They’ve vilified and defunded our law enforcement, creating a crime surge,” Ms Forte’s website reads.
Ms Forte has promised to fully fund law enforcement organisations and end “dangerous bail reform policies” in an effort to reduce crime, even though funding for the New York Police Department is actually set to be increased to more than $5.5bn in the coming year.
In 2019, Ms Forte’s family’s beverage distribution warehouse was the target of a drugs and weapons bust by the FBI that resulted in her husband pleading guilty to a charge of of conspiracy to distribute marijuana and her son pleading guilty to illegal possession of a firearm. Both men were already convicted felons.
Ms Ocasio-Cortez’s district, which covers portions of the Bronx and Queens, is one of the most Democratic in the country. The progressive lawmaker has won her previous two general elections by margins of more than 4 points. This November’s race is expected to be similarly lopsided.
