AOC responds to Florida holiday controversy

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) responded to the wave of criticism she received over photos of her vacationing in Florida, claiming her Republican critics are taking out their “sexual frustrations.”

Ocasio-Cortez directly responded to critics on Friday after they accused her of fleeing her home state of New York amid a coronavirus surge and sweeping restrictions to take a vacation in Florida, which has been heavily criticized by Democrats for rejecting the use of strict Covid mandates, many of which Ocasio-Cortez supports. The progressive Democrat faced massive backlash after photos of her and her boyfriend dining out in Miami Beach were published the night before. 

“If Republicans are mad they can’t date me they can just say that,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in one Friday tweet, pushing back against accusations of hypocrisy and elitism.

In a separate tweet, the congresswoman accused Republicans of having “very obvious, strange, and deranged sexual frustrations,” suggesting that these from the basis of “the Republican fixation on me, women & LGBT+ people in general.”

“These people clearly need therapy, won’t do it, and use politics as their outlet instead,” she wrote. 

Ocasio-Cortez also took a swipe at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ office, which had joined in on the mocking the night before. “Hasn’t Gov. DeSantis been inexplicably missing for like 2 weeks?” she tweeted, referring to the Republican governor’s absence from the public eye that has sparked speculation. 

On Tuesday, the Democratic mayor of Orange County said Floridians “should be outraged” with DeSantis. While the governor has not commented on the issue, Fox News reported on Friday, citing a DeSantis spokesperson, that the governor accompanied his wife, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, to a treatment center on December 29.