Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Called Out the Hypocrisy of "Blue Lives Matter" After the Capitol Attack

• Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned out the hypocrisy of the Blue Lives Matter movement in an Instagram Live video Tuesday, after a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol last week.
• "I don’t want to hear or see the Republican Party talk about blue lives ever again," Rep. Ocasio-Cortez said. "This was never about safety for them. It was always a slogan, because if they actually cared about rule of law they would speak up when people break the law."
• "They don’t give a damn about the law. They don’t give a damn about order. They don’t give a damn about safety. They give a damn about white supremacy," she continued.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke candidly about the pro-Trump mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol last week, in an hour-long Instagram Live video watched by almost 100,000 people on Tuesday. The following evening, she shared two short clips from the livestream to her Instagram feed, in which she condemned the hypocrisy of the Blue Lives Matter movement in the wake of the Capitol attack. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick died after he was overpowered by rioters and hit in the head with a fire extinguisher, while four participants in the attack on the Capitol also died.

"I don’t want to hear or see the Republican Party talk about blue lives ever again," Rep. Ocasio-Cortez said in the first clip. "This was never about safety for them. It was always a slogan, because if they actually cared about rule of law they would speak up when people break the law."

"They don’t give a damn about the law. They don’t give a damn about order. They don’t give a damn about safety. They give a damn about white supremacy," she continued. "They care about preserving the social order and the mythology of whiteness more than the grandeur of our democracy. That’s what they care about. They lust for power more than they care about democracy."

In a second clip, Ocasio-Cortez added, "Maybe we should just start voting on things based on whether we think it’s right or not, and stop pretending that this shit’s complicated. Cause it’s not. You’re either with the people or you’re with that mob. It’s pretty clear cut."

A few minutes into her full livestream on Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez said she feared for her life as the pro-Trump rioters rampaged through the Capitol. "I had a pretty traumatizing event happen to me and I don’t even know if I can disclose the full details of that event due to security concerns, but I can tell you I had a very close encounter where I thought I was going to die," she said.

"You have all of those thoughts where, at the end of your life, these thoughts come rushing to you," she continued. "That’s what happened to a lot of us on Wednesday. I did not know if I was going to make it to the end of that day alive. And not just in a general sense, but in a very specific sense."

Ocasio-Cortez revealed that she did not take refuge in the protected "extraction point" where lawmakers were instructed to shelter, as the Washington Post reports, fearing that other members of Congress would share her location with the mob. "There were QAnon and white-supremacist sympathizers and, frankly, white-supremacist members of Congress in that extraction point who I know and who I have felt would disclose my location and would create opportunities to allow me to be hurt, kidnapped, et cetera," she said. "So I didn’t even feel safe around other members of Congress."

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley wrote on Twitter Tuesday that she shared Ocasio-Cortez's concerns about the delegated safe room, and noted that some Republican lawmakers did not wear masks while sheltering. Democratic lawmakers Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, and Rep. Brad Schneider have since tested positive for COVID-19, the Associated Press reports.

"The second I realized our "safe room" from the violent white supremacist mob included treasonous, white supremacist, anti masker Members of Congress who incited the mob in the first place, I exited," Rep. Pressley tweeted. "Furious that more of my colleagues by the day are testing positive."

Rep. Pressley's office, too, proved unsafe, according to her chief of staff Sarah Groh. Groh told the Boston Globe that after she and Pressley barricaded themselves in the office, alongside Pressley's husband and other staffers, they realized the security system had been sabotaged. "Every panic button in my office had been torn out—the whole unit," Groh said.