Maybe they were burying the hatchet.
Cameras caught progressive darling Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) chatting cordially with far-right firebrand Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) during Tuesday’s marathon House speaker vote — 14 months after Gosar was censured and stripped of his committee assignments for attacking the “Squad” member.
Gosar had tweeted a video on Nov. 7, 2021 depicting himself as an anime character assassinating AOC and charging President Biden.
In response, the House voted to formally rebuke Gosar as Ocasio-Cortez accused him of promoting “racist misogyny.”
“Does anyone in this chamber find this behavior acceptable?” Ocasio-Cortez asked during the censure debate. “Would you allow depictions of violence against women, against colleagues, would you allow that in your home? You think this should happen on a school board? In a city council? In a church? And if it’s not acceptable there, why should it be accepted here?”
A deep conversation between ideological opposites Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Paul Gosar created intrigue among Twitter-users. C-SPANIn a direct response to Gosar’s posting, Ocasio-Cortez called the Republican a “creepy member I work with who fundraises for Neo-Nazi groups [and who] shared a fantasy video of him killing me.”
On Tuesday, however, the two ideological opposites sat next to each other in the chamber — with Ocasio-Cortez nodding her head as Gosar gestured, apparently trying to make a point to the Democrat.
Ocasio-Cortez told reporters that her conversation with Gosar was about an idea purportedly floated by Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy that Democrats might lower the threshold necessary for him to be elected speaker of the House.
Gosar in November 2021 posted an anime-style video on Twitter showing him slashing Ocasio-Cortez. Twitter“And I said absolutely not,” Ocasio-Cortez said, according to the Independent.
She told the news outlet that she hasn’t heard any rumblings that Democrats would be helping Republicans secure the speakership.
“Not that I’ve seen,” she said.
No apology was given to Ocasio-Cortez by Gosar on Tuesday for the anime assasination, according to the New York lawmaker.
“I think that the common thread here is that neither of us wants to see Kevin McCarthy be Speaker of the House,” she said.
Twitter users were fascinated by the odd pairing.
“[T]his is quite the conversation,” said journalist Aaron Rupar on Twitter.
Philip Bump, a columnist for the Washington Post, noted: “AOC and Gosar chatting on the CSPAN feed, which is unexpected.”
“Any body language or lip-reading experts wanna weigh in on this conversation between AOC and Paul Gosar just now?” Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips said on the social media platform.
“Best Anime series?” joked user @Bri4Change1, referencing the source of prior strife between the two.
