Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) first speech on the floor of the House of Representatives broke a C-SPAN online viewing record for House speeches.
The 29-year-old addressed President Donald Trump’s partial government shutdown on Wednesday by telling her colleagues on Capitol Hill about Yahi Abed, an air traffic control supervisor and one of her constituents in Bronx, N.Y., who recently missed his first paycheck. C-SPAN’s post with a video of her speech garnered over a million views on Twitter.
“In just over 12 hours C-SPAN’s tweet of @AOC‘s floor remarks last [night] has become most-viewed Twitter video by @cspan of any remarks by a member of [the] House of either party 1.16M,” tweeted Howard Mortman, communication director for the public cable network, on Thursday.
Mortman also said that the most viewed C-SPAN Twitter video in the Senate was of Sen. Kamala Harris questioning Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing last October. Her video got 7.14 million views.
The video of Ocasio-Cortez’s almost four-minute speech now has more than 2 million views.
First House Floor speech from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC): The truth of this shutdown is that it’s actually not about a wall…The truth is, this shutdown is about the erosion of American democracy and the subversion of our most basic governmental norms.” pic.twitter.com/r8tmsGSNtT
CSPAN (@cspan) January 17, 2019
“It is not normal to hold 800,000 workers’ paychecks hostage. It is not normal to shut down the government when we don’t get what we want,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
She added, “The truth of this shutdown is that it’s actually not about a wall. The truth is, this shutdown is about the erosion of American democracy and the subversion of our most basic governmental norms.”
DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti said: “While Pelosi hands Trump a gift by fooling around with a trip to Afghanistan while 800,000 federal workers are not being paid, AOC shows them how to lead in her first week on the job.”
Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. Her progressive agenda and no-holds-barred approach rattles conservative politicians and their supporters. Right-wing actor James Woods is trying to make Americans afraid of her.
He tweeted on Thursday: “This is the most dangerous person in America right now. Ignore her at your peril…”
This is the most dangerous person in America right now. Ignore her at your peril… pic.twitter.com/xl9AccTkgD
James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) January 17, 2019
It seems Ocasio-Cortez is perceived as a threat because she isn’t afraid to speak her mind, even when it comes to sharing her opinion of Trump.
