U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned Monday that the hate-filled campaign rally held by former Republican President Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York City was meant to further prime supporters for another January 6-style attempt to seize power by force if Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris wins next month's election.
Sunday's event—which drew comparisons to a 1939 Nazi rally that packed the iconic Midtown Manhattan arena—featured speakers including billionaire Elon Musk, conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico a "floating island of garbage."
Although the Trump campaign has attempted to distance the GOP presidential candidate from Hinchcliffe's bigoted remarks, Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said during a Monday interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that Sunday's event was "not just a presidential rally," it was "a hate rally."
"I think it's important for people to understand that these are mini January 6 rallies. These are mini 'Stop the Steal' rallies," Ocasio-Cortez said, referring to the 2021 Capitol insurrection and movement born from the conspiracy theory that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential contest from Trump.
"These are rallies to prime an electorate into rejecting the results of an election if it doesn't go the way that they want, because Donald Trump and that entire cadre of people up on that stage... do not respect the law of the United States of America, and they either want to win this election or they are using rhetoric of taking it by force," she continued.
"That is what they mean, and that's what they're doing when they're inciting violence and hatred against Latinos, against Black Americans, against Americans who don't have children."
Ocasio-Cortez singled out the Republican vice presidential nominee, U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), for "talking about watering down peoples' right to vote depending on if they can viably carry a child or not."
"We have to understand how unhinged this campaign has gotten and the only reason that the rhetoric has gotten this far is precisely because they are trying to prime the kind of froth that led to the January 6 attack on the Capitol," she said.
"And so it's very important that we connect those dots, and right now the [Trump] campaign is scrambling and they're trying to blame this rhetoric on a so-called comedian?" Ocasio-Cortez added. "This is not a comedian. This is the Trump campaign. They invited this rhetoric on their stage for a reason."
