Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hit again at “disrespectful men” early Wednesday after Republican lawmakers tried to close down her criticism of deep well being cuts in President Trump’s sprawling price range invoice.
The progressive congresswoman informed GOP colleagues round 3 a.m. that she wouldn’t preserve quiet within the face of a late-night cuts to Medicaid that would depart hundreds of thousands of Individuals with out well being protection.
“There are 13.7 million Americans on the other side of that screen there. Hello, hello,” Ocasio-Cortez stated, waving to the digicam that beams Home proceedings to viewers nationwide.
“I’m talking to you because I work for you,” she added. “They deserve to see what is happening here because there are plenty of districts, including Republican ones, where 25% (or) 40% of your constituents are on Medicaid.”
President Donald Trump. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Photographs)
The scolding unfolded throughout a GOP push to develop work necessities and make different deep cuts within the Medicaid program that gives some 70 million lower-income Individuals with well being care.
Ocasio-Cortez, who represents components of Queens and the Bronx, demanded to know why the proposal doesn’t exempt pregnant girls who’ve suffered a miscarriages, elevating the hazard they may lose their protection if they’re unable to work.
Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas) took offense at what he thought of grandstanding by Ocasio-Cortez.
“We’d like for you to address the Republicans,” Weber stated. “Let’s have a dialogue this way and not to a camera.”
Weber instructed Ocasio-Cortez to cease speaking and provides again her allotted time to different Democrats. However she refused.
“I will not yield because it was a terribly disrespectful comment,” she stated. “And I will not yield to disrespectful men.”
The dispute got here because the Vitality and Commerce Committee continued its marathon effort to go its a part of the GOP’s sprawling proposed bundle of tax and spending cuts.
A centerpiece of the bundle is greater than $900 billion in spending cuts, most of that to Medicaid.
The invoice must go the Home, the place the GOP can seemingly afford to lose the votes of not more than three members, then get the inexperienced gentle from the Senate to keep away from a filibuster beneath a posh legislative course of often called reconciliation.
Dozens of Home Republicans have claimed they won’t help cuts to Medicaid, but it surely stays to be seen what number of will cave within the face of stress from Trump and Republican management.
Republicans insist they’re merely rooting out “waste, fraud and abuse” in this system to generate huge financial savings with new work and eligibility necessities.
However Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez and well being watchdog teams say the trouble is actually aimed toward chopping well being protection for hundreds of thousands of Individuals.
“What I believe you’re doing … is figuring out every way possible for them not to qualify,” stated Rep. Frank Pallone (D-New Jersey), the rating Democrat on the panel.
Initially Printed: Might 14, 2025 at 11:28 AM EDT
