New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (a.k.a. AOC) took a verbal blowtorch to her Republican colleague, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) after she read off a list of “special interests” during a House committee hearing, and video of the exchange is going viral on social media.
HuffPost reports the purpose of the hearing was on something known as “third-party litigation funding.”
Democrats argued “that outside backing of lawsuits allowed plaintiffs to take on big corporations while testimony from Johnson & Johnson called for more disclosure on the identity of those financing lawsuits.”
Mace made sure to thank organizations that “reached out” and agreed to be a part of the hearing.
“I’d like to enter into the record letters to the committee from the American Tort Reform Association, American Property Casualty Insurance Association, the Advanced Medical Technology Association, the Institute for Legal Reform, the International Legal Finance Association, National Association of Manufacturers, Jerry Theodorou at the R Street Institute. Without objection, so ordered. … I would now like to yield five minutes to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.”
That led AOC to respond, “I thank [you] for the listing of all the special interests involved in addition in this hearing.”
Mace: I would like to say thank you to many organizations that reached out in anticipation of this hearing today..
AOC: I thank you for the listing of all the special interests involved in this hearing pic.twitter.com/9kZjWO5uXR
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 13, 2023
Ocasio-Cortez used the remainder of her time to focus on the Supreme Court.
“When I first heard that the Republican side was going to be calling a hearing on third-party influence in our courts, I was so excited because I thought, finally we are going to address the biggest scandal in American democracy that we are currently having right now, which is the extraordinary corruption and wholesale purchase of members of the Supreme Court.”
“And I also find it amusing that we just heard from the Republican side, ‘Ucchh, why do we want to talk about this?’” she added. “Because women have lost the right to choose, because Indigenous people have lost rights, because minorities have lost rights, because working people across the country have lost rights due to this level of corruption.”
Twitter users delighted in AOC’s remarks.
"This hearing, sponsored by…"
Why don't Republicans get patches on their clothing, like they do in soccer, of all the "sponsors" to thos hearing? 😂— Orange Diamonds Are Free 🔸️ (@mrod21mvp) September 14, 2023
Forget 9-1-1 Call the coroner because @AOC just murdered mace in 20 words or less. 😳
— Beth Fullerton☮️ (@BethFullerton2) September 14, 2023
That should be a requirement before every hearing — list all the lobbying organizations involved, and how much they gave to each member of Congress to buy their votes.
— Masked Mark Masek 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇪🏳️🌈⚾️🍕🟧 (@CemeteryGuide) September 14, 2023
I hope somebody got @NancyMace some salve for the burn marks….!!
— diesel72 (@TheDiesel72) September 13, 2023
