There’s been much speculation that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is the driving force behind the Democrat shutdown of the federal government, and she addressed the idea during a Tuesday MSNBC appearance.
The socialist diva chatted with host Chris Hayes hours before her party went through with its collective punishment of America, responding to questions about her influence on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who is holding on to his Senate seat for dear life out of fear that she will challenge him in the upcoming Democratic primary.
AOC was among those critical of Schumer over the “tremendous mistake” of voting for a GOP funding bill that kept the government open in March after she whipped up support for a shutdown at the time. The 74-year-old New Yorker clearly isn’t keen on the prospect of being booted from the Senate gravy train by the younger and more popular congresswoman, and fell in line this time.
Hayes: There are some people I have seen who who have the following theory: Schumer is worried about a primary challenge from you
AOC: This is so not about me in this moment. This is about people being able to insure their children.
I saw some Republican members of congress… pic.twitter.com/PjJpYz9Ben
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 1, 2025
“There are some people I have seen who have the following theory of why we – why Senate Democrats have not cut a deal where they give eight votes and and you know, move move along, and that is that Chuck Schumer is worried about a primary challenge from you and is worried about the politics to his left flank,” Hayes began. “And so, because of that, worry about a primary challenge, he’s gonna shut down the government.”
“Ergo, it is AOC’s fault that the government is shutting down, or that you’re, you’re somehow the kind of fulcrum of this,” he asked. “And I wanna just ask you straight up, like, are you planning to primary challenge him? Do you think that’s why he’s doing this?”
“This is so not about me in this moment, this is about people being able to insure their children,” she responded, sticking to the party’s talking point that it’s all about protecting healthcare. “And I will say, because I saw some senators speculating about this, and I saw some Republican members of Congress saying, ‘Oh, well, if we have this shutdown, it’s because of AOC.’”
Ocasio-Cortez then slyly went over Schumer’s head, inviting Republicans to negotiate with her directly.
“Well, if that’s the case, my office is open and you are free to walk in and negotiate with me directly, because what I’m not going to do is tolerate four million uninsured Americans because Donald Trump decided one day that he wants to just make sure that kids are dying because they don’t have access to insurance,” she said.
What AOC left out is that her party is once again putting the needs of illegal aliens over productive American citizens, and that THEY are the ones who Democrats just shut down the federal government for so that their foreign voters can get free healthcare even as struggling Americans are unable to afford it.
“That’s what’s not gonna happen, and so if those senators think that we’re having a shutdown because of me, they’re free to enter my office and negotiate, because what we’re not going to do is allow all of millions of people in this country to not be able to afford their insulin and their chemotherapy,” she told the snickering Hayes. “So, come strike a deal with me, if that’s what you really think is going on.”
Despite her dancing around the proverbial elephant in the room, Republicans aren’t being fooled that Ocasio-Cortez isn’t indeed the “fulcrum” behind the “Schumer shutdown,” which could more accurately be branded as the “Schumer-AOC shutdown.”
“Schumer is afraid of AOC,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) wrote in a post to X. “Schumer thinks the only way to fend-off her primary challenge is if he ‘fights Trump.’ Schumer is shutting down the federal government and bringing the whole nation down with him for primary election optics. It’s that simple.”
“I want everyone to know that our government is shutting down tonight because of a former bartender from the Bronx,” said Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) on X. “Chuck Schumer is terrified of AOC primarying him so he’s catering to the far-left who would rather pay for illegal alien healthcare than pay our troops.”
“Chuck Schumer is afraid of his own shadow, and that shadow’s name is AOC,” said Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL). “Tonight, we saw that same shadow loom over their whole party when they voted to shut down the government and put their radical, far-left priorities ahead of the American people.”
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