Ocasio-Cortez v Ben Shapiro: Dem candidate refuses ‘catcalling’ debate offer

Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has declined Ben Shapiro’s challenge to debate him for $10,000, likening the conservative host’s offer to catcalling.

“Just like catcalling, I don’t owe a response to unsolicited requests from men with bad intentions,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Thursday. “And also like catcalling, for some reason they feel entitled to one.”

Shapiro responded, denying his offer to debate had ‘bad intentions.’ “Slandering someone as a sexist catcaller without reason or evidence does demonstrate cowardice and bad intent, however,” he said.

Shapiro extended the invitation to Ocasio-Cortez on his ‘The Ben Shapiro Show’ on Wednesday, telling his audience he would donate $10,000 to Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign or a charity if she would come on the show to debate him so that he could “probe” her belief system.

The conservative host referenced Ocasio-Cortez’s comments that Republicans aren’t willing to debate, and said he wanted to ask her to "name an industry you would not nationalize; which ones should the government not run and why?”

“Alright, can she name any of them?” he added.

Ocasio-Cortez is running to represent New York’s 14th Congressional District on a social-democratic platform which includes calling for Medicare for all, tuition-free public college education, and an end to the use of fossil fuels.

READ MORE: US can afford ‘unlimited war’ but not Medicare for all, says Ocasio-Cortez

She beat veteran Representative Joe Crowley (D-NY) in the primary, prompting the Democratic National Committee’s Tom Perez to describe the former Bernie Sanders campaign organizer as “the future” of the Democratic party.

Shapiro is a staunch right-winger and critic of democratic socialism whose Daily Wire website is owned by fossil fuel billionaires the Dan and Farris Wilks. He has written a book called, ‘How to Debate Leftists and Destroy Them.’

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