Footage captured on video shows hard-left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) maskless with a group on the steps of the U.S. Capitol as they rallied for an extension of the eviction moratorium, putting a mask on her face for a photo-op of the group, then taking it off after the photo-op was over.
Prior to the photo, an apparent rally organizer told the group, “Let’s take a quick photo so we can keep the pressure up.”
Ocasio-Cortez was not the only hard-left politician with the group donning a mask for the photo-op, then ditching it afterward; comrade-in-arms Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) did the same thing, as video captured by Breitbart shows.
Of course! pic.twitter.com/m8kAGTHGYJ
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) August 4, 2021
“Markey, who had not been wearing a mask for around 45 minutes before the photograph, decided to put a face covering on for the picture. Just seconds after the picture was taken, he was seen pulling it down below his chin,” the Daily Mail reported, adding “AOC and other members of the Squad were later seen celebrating on the steps of the Capitol on Tuesday after the Center for Disease Control and Prevention extended the eviction moratorium for 60 days.”
Ocasio-Cortez has not been reticent to use photo-ops in a calculated way; in June 2019 she was slammed for photos of herself apparently taken at a Tornillo, Texas, detention center, where it looked as if she was ad by a chain-linked fence. The photos did not show the conditions the congresswoman was upset about.
As The Daily Wire noted, “AOC pushed the photos to her 4.5 million-plus followers on Twitter, captioning the tweet, ‘I’ll never forget this, because it was the moment I saw with my own eyes that the America I love was becoming a nation that steals refugee children from their parents, & caged them. More kids died after this. To date, no one has been held accountable. We need to save these kids.”
Critics wrote, “I love AOC but these images feel so staged, it undermines her credibility on these issues. This crisis is not about ‘striking’ photos of a Congresswoman, it is about DYING CHILDREN.” “And at such a relief she was able to be followed by a photographer on this day. Instead of you know, just going like a regular person.” “Regurgitated [public relations] stunt.”
After blowback to her photo-op erupted, left-leaning Politifact decried the photos, but with a twist, as The Daily Wire pointed out:
The left-wing fact-checker purporting to be unbiased made a mockery of themselves (again) with their latest ratingconcerning socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Politifact, creating their best damage control for the freshman congresswoman, rated the claim that Ocasio-Cortez cried in front of an empty parking lot for a photo-op as “false” because it was, in fact, a “road” with some parked cars, not a parking lot,that the elected Democrat cried in front of.