AOC Tells Dana Bash She Thought She Was Going to be Raped and Killed During the Storming of the Capitol

During a preview of an exclusive interview with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to air on CNN Monday night, the congresswoman explained to Dana Bash the danger she felt she was in on January 6.

On that day, supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol during Congress’s certification of the 2020 presidential election won by Joe Biden. Trump claimed the contest had been rigged, which led a violent mob to disrupt the proceedings in a deadly insurrection. Many lawmakers, including Ocasio-Cortez, barricaded themselves in rooms as rioters marauded around the Capitol, some of whom were calling for the vice president to be hanged.

The congresswoman gave a harrowing account of what she felt that day.

OCASIO-CORTEZ: I think one of the reasons why that impact was so doubled that day is because of the misogyny and the racism that is so deeply rooted and animated that attack on the Capitol. You know, White supremacy and patriarchy are very linked in a lot of ways. There’s a lot of sexualizing of that violence. And I didn’t think that I was just going to be killed. I thought other things were going to happen to me as well.

BASH: So it sounds like what you are telling me right now is that you didn’t only think that you were going to die. You thought you were going to be raped.

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Yeah. Yeah, I thought I was.

The freshman New York congresswoman said in February that she is a survivor of sexual assault as she talked about dealing with trauma after January 6.

The congresswoman also spoke with CNN about her arrival in Washington as a member of Congress in 2019. She said she received a chilly reception, even from fellow Democrats, after she had defeated 10-term Democratic congressman Joe Crowley.

“My first term was very painful,” she said. “It was very, very painful. And you know, I came in and I unseated an incumbent that, while may not have been very resonant in our community, was very popular inside those, you know, smoke-filled rooms. And so I took away a friend. And I walked in to a very cold environment, even within my own party.”

Watch above via CNN