Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. has a few reasons to celebrate as we turn the calendar to 2021.
Her two-year Congressional anniversary is fast approaching, and there’s New Year’s Eve, too.
Of course, there’s Christmas as well…
But she hates the gift one of her closest allies gave her early this year — a knife in the back.
AOC’s fellow “Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., made a public rebuke of Ocasio-Cortez on Monday. Omar openly slammed all politicians for receiving the COVID-19 vaccine before frontline workers. AOC was one of the very politicians who took the vaccine.
Ocasio-Cortez documented the vaccine experience this week on social media, smiling as she jumped the line.
Widely circulated photos of her and other politicians receiving the vaccine have spread around since.
“I would never, ever ask you to do something I wasn’t willing to do myself,” AOC wrote in her Instagram post. “Yesterday, in accordance with national security protocols, Congress began to get vaccinated.”
But her actions aren’t sitting right with fellow “Squad” member Omar.
The Minnesota congresswoman called the actions of AOC and other politicians “disturbing” and she took to social media to voice her complaints.
“It’s now clear that we don’t have enough vaccines for everybody and there is a shortage of supply, we have to prioritize those who need it most,” Omar tweeted over the weekend. ‘That’s why it’s disturbing to see members be first to get vaccine while most frontline workers, elderly and infirm in our districts, wait.”
Across the aisle, Sen. Rand Paul, R-K.Y., agreed with Omar.
“I think it would be unconscionable for somebody who’s had it to get in front of somebody who hasn’t had it to take a vaccine,” Paul told reporters on Monday. “I think it’s unconscionable for AOC, who’s 30 years old, to be smiling gleefully and getting the vaccine when you got 85-year-old people in nursing homes who haven’t gotten it.”
He later tweeted —
I was asked about getting vaccinated with others in Congress:
It is inappropriate for me – who has already gotten the virus/has immunity – to get in front of elderly/healthcare workers.
Same goes for AOC or any young healthy person. They should be among last, not first.
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 21, 2020
And as for the two congresswomen, all eyes will be on AOC and Omar as Congress heads into the holiday recess.
Can they make amends?
The Horn editorial team