MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell on Wednesday offered effusive praise for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the youngest woman ever elected to the House of Representatives.
“Donald Trump discovered today that his job does not come with the same privileges that come with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s job,” O’Donnell explained. “Donald Trump doesn’t have floor privileges.”
“The president of the United States does not have the same floor privileges that a member of Congress has — a member of the House of Representatives can enter the House chamber at any time and a member of the House of Representatives can also enter the Senate chamber at any time,” he continued. “Donald Trump cannot.”
“The president of the United States needs an invitation, and today House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the president because of the government shutdown that he created, she cannot extend an invitation to him to deliver his State of the Union address in the House of Representatives to a joint session of Congress,” O’Donnell noted.
“And Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put the blame for the shutdown right where it belongs as of now, and that is in the United States Senate,” he continued. “And she did that by exercising her floor privileges and walking right in to the United States Senate chamber to deliver a letter to Mitch McConnell — telling him to bring the government funding bills that have already passed the House of Representatives to a vote in the United States Senate, where those bills would pass if Mitch McConnell would simply allow a vote.”
“Now, House members entering the Senate chamber is a rare occurrence, most people working in the Senate never see it happen, most staff members never see that happen,” O’Donnell, a former Senate staffer, explained. “House members entering the Senate chamber in protest, well, that’s even more rare.”
“Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez is the second most famous member of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi being the most famous member,” O’Donnell reported. “Now, we have not seen such a famous freshman member of the House since John Quincy Adams was elected to the House of Representatives after serving as our sixth president of the United States.”
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, who is also known by her initials, AOC, used her massive social media platform for her #WheresMitch search for the Senate Majority Leader.
“In modern politics — in social media politics — with fame comes power, the power to direct media attention where you want it. The power to push a policy position into the national political debate,” O’Donnell noted. “And Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez did that today more effectively than any other member of the House of Representatives could have done it, because of that fame.”
“And there is apparently no one in the House of Representatives who understands fame and knows how to use fame better than Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, who does not need a staff to explain Instagram to her or any other social media or mass communication tool, including how she should handle herself on Stephen Colbert’s show,” he continued.
“Today, Mitch McConnell might have actually been using his hideaway as the place to literally hide away from Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez — the place to hide away from the inescapable fact that this shutdown now belongs to Mitch McConnell,” O’Donnell said. “Donald Trump started it and Mitch McConnell is doing everything he can to keep it going for Donald Trump.”
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