A Twitter spat between Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez derailed after she accused him of being silent about white supremacy.
Ocasio-Cortez accused Cruz of “riding in the quiet car” of a white supremacist train after he posted a meme mocking former Vice President Joe Biden’s latest train-tour campaign event.
Cruz accused Joe Biden of joining the “radical left” while AOC referenced President Trump’s comments about the Proud Boys during the debate on Tuesday night.
“Biden may be the Democrat Party’s nominee, but we know who is driving the train,” Cruz wrote in a tweet featuring a cartoon of a train carrying Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Ilhan Omar, and others.
“I must say, Ted Cruz making poorly executed memes while riding in the quiet car of the White Supremacist Express is pretty on brand for both him and 2020,” AOC responded.
Several Republicans have been asked to condemn white supremacy as part of the fallout from Trump’s debate when he told the Proud Boys, a far-right group tied to hateful ideologies, to “stand back” and “stand by.” Many people, including Ocasio-Cortez, took this as a refusal to condemn white supremacy.
“Donald Trump is a white supremacist. People have been warning about this for a long time,” AOC tweeted after the debate. “They were ridiculed, called hyperbolic & radical — not [because] they were wrong, but [because] others couldn’t accept that our country elected a supremacist as President. This is fascism at our door.”
Sen. Cruz defended the President during a heated debate on CNN on Wednesday, saying he was glad that President Trump had clarified his remarks to note that he does not support the Proud Boys and that he wants law enforcement to handle rioters, not Proud Boys militias.
Ocasio-Cortez and Cruz, who are both of Hispanic heritage, have gotten in several spats on Twitter over the past few years, but they have also worked with each other on legislation to prevent lawmakers from becoming lobbyists after they leave office.
