TRN - AOC Details Traumatizing Event During Capitol Riots

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GOP Rep. Nancy Mace got into a heated back-and-forth with Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter on Thursday after Mace accused Ocasio-Cortez of exaggerating the level of danger she felt during the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

Mace and others on the right have accused Ocasio-Cortez, without evidence, of falsifying and exaggerating her experience. Mace, whose office is two doors down from Ocasio-Cortez's, told Fox News that "no insurrectionists stormed our hallway" to undercut Ocasio-Cortez's story.

Notably, as CNN's Daniel Dale pointed out, Ocasio-Cortez never said she definitively saw insurrectionists in the hallway or in her office, but did recount having her office door banged on and having a frightening experience with a Capitol Police officer in a Instagram Live on Monday night.

Ocasio-Cortez pointed out that shortly after the insurrection itself, Mace was one of the most vocal GOP voices condemning the violence and recounting her own intense fear of the insurrectionists.

Mace said that after being sworn in on January 3 she sent her two children back to South Carolina because she was afraid of potential violence. She's also said that, like Ocasio-Cortez, she barricaded herself in her office as the Capitol was breached.

Critics of Ocasio-Cortez, including Mace and some Fox News hosts and guests, have pushed the hashtags #AOCLied and #AOCSmollett, comparing her to the disgraced actor Jussie Smollett who was accused of staging a racist attack on himself in Chicago in January 2019.

Mace responded: "FACT CHECK: have not once discounted your fear. We were ALL terrified that day. I'm stating the fact that insurrectionists were never in our hallway... because they weren't. I deal in facts. Unlike you, apparently."

In a separate Twitter thread, Ocasio-Cortez said it was "wild" to see Mace "discrediting herself less than 1 [month] in office w/ such dishonest attacks" and accused Mace of downplaying the trauma of all survivors of violent attacks.

In her Instagram livestream, Ocasio-Cortez publicly revealed that she is a survivor of sexual assault for the first, which she said compounded the trauma of the Capitol insurrection. Mace recently told the Washington Examiner that she survived a sexual assault as a teenager, leading her to drop out of high school.

Since Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democrat, took to Instagram Live on Monday to describe what the Jan. 6 riot was like from inside the Capitol complex, critics have claimed that she wasn’t where she said she was, or that she couldn’t have experienced what she described from her location.

These claims are false.

While Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was not in the main, domed Capitol building when the rioters breached it, she never said she was. She accurately described being in the Cannon House Office Building, which is part of the Capitol complex and is connected to the main building by tunnels.

In her livestream, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez recalled hiding in a bathroom and thinking she was going to die as unknown people entered her office and shouted, “Where is she?” They turned out to be Capitol Police officers who had not clearly identified themselves, and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said so on Instagram. She did not claim that they were rioters — only that, from her hiding spot, she initially thought they were.

During the riot, reporters wrote on Twitter that the Cannon building was being evacuated because of credible threats, and that Capitol Police officers were running through the hallways and entering offices just as Ms. Ocasio-Cortez described.

White privilege minimizes this. Sedition and probable inside job are more apropos. I do think if found the squad was discovered they would have been taken hostage, raped or killed. I do not know if that particular cop she overheard was in on it or overwhelmed but I have strong suspicions about the leadership of the Capital police being in on it. If I attempted to walk into the Capital uninvited even though I am a 63 year old white guy with a cane I would have expected to be ripped to shreds by bullets before I got near that door. How do they know I am not a suicide bomber? There was ample warning of trouble. I posted an article that mentioned the Capital being stormed the night before. If me some dude on the internet was worried I find it impossible to believe the leadership of the Capital police was so blasé about an event so contentious, so well publicized in advance.

What Is a Black Swan?

A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. Black swan events are characterized by their extreme rarity, severe impact, and the widespread insistence they were obvious in hindsight.

She's wrong to say that! If I was AOC, I'd be terrified too! She would not lie like that!

I don't think it was a 'Karen' event.

As I understand it, besides the fact that no rioters were near her office and the evacuation was precautionary, a major point of contention with her account was claiming the officer who was there to help evacuate her was looking at her with “murderous rage”...

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by a Karen event. Could you please clarify?

I know what a Karen is. I just don't know what a 'Karen event' is in this context. I was simply saying that I don't think AOC would lie about her experiences. She seems a very honest woman.