AOC is breaking up screaming matches. What did this happen? Earlier this month, bipartisanship was alive and well in the Capitol Building, as GOP Representatives Matt Gaetz (Fla.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (Penn.) and Democratic Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (Ill.) introduced legislation that would prohibit members of Congress from owning and trading individual stocks.
The proposal was aimed at restoring public trust by preventing lawmakers from profiting off insider information.
This was noteworthy given how divided the nation has become.
Yet, there was also a time actually when our elected officials could work together, but also when they could put political differences aside when they stepped out of the halls of power.
President Ronald Reagan was famously friends with House Speaker Tip O’Neill (D-Mass.), while Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) were also close friends.
AOC Is Breaking Up Screaming Matches
Such display of civility is now less frequently on display, as was noted when the aforementioned AOC had to break up a shouting match between Representatives Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
According to reports, Bowman, a member of the left-wing group “The Squad,” and far-right Republican Greene began to argue shortly after House Republicans voted to stall efforts to expel Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) from Congress.
Bowman repeatedly suggested that Greene needed to think about saving the Republican Party and America and said, “No more QAnon, no more MAGA, no more debt-ceiling nonsense,” while she responded, “Impeach Biden,” and “close the border.” Neither apparently was actually listening to the other.
For the World To See
The two could be seen on a video shared to social media essentially shouting over one another, until Ocasio-Cortez says to Bowman, “She ain’t worth it bro.”
The exchange occurred Wednesday after Bowman Ocasio-Cortez Santos, who was responding to questions from reporters, TheHill reported. It was earlier that day that the House had referred a resolution to expel Santos to the Ethics Committee following the federal indictment filed against him, with the move in effect delaying a decision on whether he should be removed from Congress.
She Said, He Said
The spat didn’t exactly end there, as Taylor Greene, later called out Bowman for his choice of words, telling reporters, “Jamaal Bowman [was] shouting at the top of his lungs, cursing, calling me a horrible … calling me a white supremacist which I take great offense to that. It’s like calling a person of color the N-word which should never happen. Calling me a white supremacist is equal to that. That is wrong.”
Greene claims Bowman approached her, although Bowman fired back and said that her characterization of the confrontation was an “utter and blatant lie,” while adding that it followed the “long tradition … of Black men who are passionate, outspoken, or who stand their ground, being characterized as ‘threatening’ or ‘intimidating.'”
Bowman, who was elected to the House of Representatives in 2020 after defeating 16-term incumbent Eliot Engel, added, “Marjorie’s attack is beyond a dog-whistle. It’s a bull-horn. And it’s reckless and dangerous. She has put a target on my back. The truth of the matter is that we had a light back-and-forth on the steps of Capitol Hill, surrounded by reporters and staff.”
Though Wednesday’s exchange was actually all that heated even if it was a very public debate, fortunately, it didn’t show any sign of becoming physical. It was also not the first time Bowman has been involved in such a fiery exchange. In March, he engaged with Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky outside the House Chambers over gun control.
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Author Experience and Expertise
A Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.
