And shocking no one, the story about AOC was a total lie.
apnews.com
CLAIM: U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, claimed that a Capitol police officer told her “This is MAGA country” during the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Ocasio-Cortez never quoted the Capitol police officer saying these words. In an Instagram Live video about her experience during the melee, Ocasio-Cortez described not knowing whether she could trust a Capitol police officer who entered her office and told her to go to another building.
THE FACTS: Social media users seeking to paint Ocasio-Cortez as an unreliable narrator in her account of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots are using a falsely attributed quote to do so.
Facebook post with more than 50,000 views on Wednesday features a picture of Ocasio-Cortez overlaid with a quote. “And then the Capitol police officer said ‘This is MAGA country!’” reads the text.
The post also includes a line attributing the quote to “Alexandria Ocasio-Smollet,” a reference to former “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett, who was accused of staging a racist, anti-gay attack against himself in 2019.
“Someone needs to tell her to stop lying so much,” reads one comment on the post. “It will catch up with her.”
But Ocasio-Cortez never made this claim. In an Instagram Live video about her experience during the insurrection, she described an interaction with a Capitol police officer, but not one matching this post.
Ocasio-Cortez said in her video that she was in her office in a building near the Capitol building on Jan. 6 when she heard repeated bangs on the door, like someone was trying to get in. Her legislative director told her to hide, and she went into the bathroom. She then heard a male voice yelling, “Where is she?”
