WASHINGTON, DC -New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she was worried for her life when radical right-wing protesters broke into the U.S. Capitol Building as she and other members of Congress narrowly escaped death.
“I hope I get to be a mom, I hope I don’t die today,” she said. “I did not know if I was going to make it to the end of that day alive.”
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On Monday, Cortez said she wants to hold Republicans in Congress accountable for the riot and refuses to “just move on”.
“The folks who are saying we should move on, we shouldn’t have accountability, etc., are saying: ‘Can you just forget about this so that we can do it again?’” she said.
She also said she felt scared of other members of Congress from the other side of the aisle.
“I didn’t even feel safe going to that extraction point because there were QAnon and white supremacist members of Congress who I felt would disclose my location and create opportunities to allow me to be hurt…I didn’t feel safe around other members of Congress,” she said. “It is not an exaggeration to say that many, many members of the House were nearly assassinated, but many of us merely narrowly escaped death. And it’s also extremely traumatizing.’
Luckily for Cortez, she said D.C. plenty of police officers of color were there to stop the white supremacist attack on Congress.
“There were also black and brown officers that were confronting white supremacists and putting themselves, not just to protect members, but they put themselves in harm’s way,” she added, believing the white officers could be there to cause her harm. “And to run in the Capitol, in our nation’s capital, and not know if an officer is there to help you or to harm you – it’s also quite traumatizing.”
Cortez has previously accused U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of orchestrating her attempted murder.
Since the January 6th riot at the Capitol building, the Justice Department has made scores of arrests of those responsible for the breach of the building, none have been charged yet with the attempted murder of Cortez and those suspects remain at-large.