Liberal New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is known for her outlandish and often untrue remarks. Recently, AOC falsely claimed she represents more Americans in her New York district than West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin does.
However, while AOC was trying to bash the moderate Democrat for shooting down President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda her outright false claim is what really captured the viewer’s attention.
Fox News reports:
“The House of Representatives, and that’s even with the gerrymandering, is the only majority that most reliably delivers the actual will of the majority of people and voters of the United States of America. That is why they call this the people’s house,” she said. “It is extremely difficult to hold together a House majority, and especially with the razor-thin margin that we have around this agenda. So the idea that Joe Manchin says he can’t explain this back home to his people is a farce. I mean, it’s a farce in terms of plain democracy, because I represent more, or just as many or more people than Joe Manchin does. Perhaps more.”
Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t corrected by her MSNBC interviewers, but she wasn’t close in her pronouncement. West Virginia has about 1.8 million residents, making it the 10th-least populated state, while her district in Queens and the Bronx has around 700,000 residents, as of 2019 estimations.
In Ocasio-Cortez’s 2020 reelection bid, she received 152,661 votes in a landslide victory over GOP opponent John Cummings. While her victory was never in doubt in her deep-blue district, Manchin faced one of the country’s toughest reelection bids in the 2018 midterms, winning more than 290,000 votes in a narrow victory over Republican Patrick Morrisey. Former President Trump carried West Virginia in landslides in 2016 and 2020.
Manchin said on “Fox News Sunday” that he had worked hard to reach an agreement with the Biden White House and his Democratic colleagues over Build Back Better, a $1.75 trillion social policy bill addressing a spate of issues, but he could not support it in the end.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez along with other liberals in the House have mercilessly attacked Manchin for opposing Biden’s legislation. However, AOC noted that other Democrats are to blame, pointing to Senate Leader Chuck Schumer.
“We have every right to be furious with Joe Manchin, but it’s really up to leadership in the Democratic Party, who made this decision to get us to this juncture,” she said.
