Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is getting emotional as she is sharing, “I’m a survivor of sexual assault.”
Ocasio-Cortez explained during an Instagram Live on Monday evening that it is important to hold people accountable, as she spoke of her experience during the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6 and lawmakers calling on her to apologize for remarks she has made. A Republican lawmaker recently called on her to apologize for recent tweets aimed at Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
“We cannot move on without accountability,” the Democratic lawmaker said, according to The Hill. “We cannot heal without accountability. All these people telling us to move on are doing so at their own convenience.”
She continued, “These are the tactics that abusers use. The folks who are saying, ‘We should move on,’ ‘We shouldn’t have accountability,’ etc., are saying, ‘Can you just forget about this so we can do it again?’”
“How I felt was, not again. I’m not going to let this happen again. I’m not gonna let it happen to me again. I’m not going to let it happen to the other people who’ve been victimized by this situation again. And I’m not gonna let this happen to our country.”
Watch the video below:
.@AOC says Ted Cruz and others are deploying "the tactics of abusers" in denying GOP responsibility for the insurrection:
— The Recount (@therecount) February 2, 2021
"I'm not going to let it happen to me again … and I'm not going to let it happen to our country." pic.twitter.com/aUel9Lya6r
Ocasio-Cortez also previously shared during an Instagram Live about the Capitol riot, “As for myself, I had a pretty traumatizing event happen to me and I do not know if I can even disclose the full details of that event due to security concerns, but I can tell you I had a very close encounter where I thought I was going to die.”
During Monday’s Instagram Live, Ocasio-Cortez explained that while hiding she heard a man shouting, “Where is she?”
“This was the moment where I thought everything was over,” she added. “In retrospect, maybe it was four seconds. Maybe it was five seconds. Maybe it was 10 seconds. Maybe it was one second. I don’t know. It felt like my brain was able to have so many thoughts in that moment between these screams and these yells of ‘Where is she? Where is she?”‘
She added, “I thought I was going to die.”
The man who was shouting, “Where is she?” was a Capitol Police officer who did not announce himself. He directed her and her staffer to a different building, without providing specific instructions.
She eventually found Rep. Katie Porter’s (D-Calif.) office.
Porter recalled during an MSNBC interview Ocasio-Cortez knocking on her office door and looking for where she was going to hide on Jan. 6.
“She was opening up doors, and I was like, ‘Can I help you? Like, what are you looking for?’ And she said, ‘I’m looking for where I’m going to hide,'” Porter said.
Watch Porter’s interview below:
"I just hope I get to be a mom. I hope I don't die today," Rep. Porter recalls Rep. Ocasio-Cortez telling her as they hid together during last month's Capitol riots. pic.twitter.com/HxMqBVCX6l
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) February 2, 2021
Porter added that Ocasio-Cortez told her, “I hope I get to be a mom, I hope I don’t die today.” She also said they found sneakers from a staffer in case Ocasio-Cortez “needed to literally run for her life.”