Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who boycotted the State of the Union address to protest President Trump’s “lawless conduct & subversion of the Constitution,” nonetheless had a lot to say about the speech.
AOC took to Instagram Live late Tuesday night and sounded off on Trump awarding Rush Limbaugh a Medal of Freedom, his courting of the black community, and her theory he’s paying off black supporters.
After one of her followers asked about Limbaugh, AOC accused the broadcaster of being “virulently racist.”
“First of all, the Presidential Medal of Freedom is an extraordinarily sacred award,” she said. “We’re talking about putting someone on the same level as Rosa Parks, you know, for example in terms of their contributions to American progress. Rush Limbaugh is a virulent racist, but even just on top of that, to do it in the middle of a State of the Union and not even dignify it with its own ceremony as it has — there’s all sorts of norms that are being violated, not just for people’s humanity, but also it truly just cheapens the value of it.”
The lawmaker did not elaborate on why she believes Limbaugh to be a “virulent racist,” but suggested Limbaugh was “pretending” to be surprised by the honor.
“Also him pretending to be surprised was such a joke, this has been news all day,” AOC said. “There have been multiple reports from multiple news outlets saying that Rush Limbaugh was going to receive the Medal of Freedom and then Trump announced it and he had to like pretend that this was some kind of Oprah moment.
“And to give it to Rush Limbaugh when there were plenty of people in that audience that have contributed positively to the fabric of American society, much more frankly, than he has,” she continued, “You know, but it’s red meat to his base, Trump knows what he is doing and he wants to assert that Rush Limbaugh is somehow on the same level as Rosa Parks, and it’s truly nauseating.”
AOC also hit Trump for treating the State of the Union “like a game show” and singling out “persons of color” for recognition.
“We need to be very careful about this,” she advised her followers, “because it’s extraordinarily deliberate and it’s being done with a very specific agenda. That this also is in line with the fact that Trump decided to make a kind of bogus criminal justice reform advertisement in the Super Bowl. He’s being very deliberate in trying to look like he’s being great for the black community, for communities of color, etc.”
The New York Democrat suggested Trump is actually paying off his black supporters.
“Trump knows exactly what he is doing, he has started, Donald Trump has started giving out cash to black Americans at his rallies,” she said without evidence. “This whole State of the Union was like a game show where he was handing out prizes and surprises and reality TV moments and this is exactly his political agenda and this is, it’s not just for political reasons but one of the reasons why I find it so frustrating that the rights of people of color are constantly negotiated and on the chopping block in politics in general is this is one of the concerns because when suddenly the rights of immigrants are controversial or issues pertaining to black Americans are controversial, but issues facing white Americans are not controversial and they are bread and butter issues. This is what starts to happen in our political discourse.”