Liz Cheney hits back at Ocasio-Cortez over concentration camp comments: ‘This isn’t model Congress’

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) fired back at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) about their ongoing feud that began with Ocasio-Cortez calling detention centers housing undocumented immigrants “concentration camps.”

“This is real Congress — this isn’t model Congress,” Cheney told reporters Tuesday during a House leadership press conference. “We have real work to do, and we ought to be getting that work done.”{mosads}

The week-long firestorm between the two congresswomen began when Ocasio-Cortez said during an Instagram Live video that detention centers housing immigrants are “exactly” like concentration camps, and in the face of criticism from Republicans and some Democrats, doubling down on her remarks.

“That’s a comment that is clearly ludicrous [and] clearly something that must be responded to,” Cheney said Tuesday. “I think she ought to apologize for it, and I think that we ought to be in a position where rather than launching attacks like that — which are clearly political on their face [and] clearly misinformed — we all ought to be working to try to help the crisis at the border.”

“Allegations that somehow the United States is operating in a way that is in any way parallel to the Holocaust is just completely ludicrous,” Cheney added.

After the freshman New York representative first made the comments, Cheney tweeted: “Please @AOC do us all a favor and spend just a few minutes learning some actual history. 6 million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust. You demean their memory and disgrace yourself with comments like this.”{mosads}

Later on Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez said “shrieking Republicans” equated “concentration camps” and “death camps.”

“And for the shrieking Republicans who don’t know the difference: concentration camps are not the same as death camps,” she tweeted. “Concentration camps are considered by experts as ‘the mass detention of civilians without trial.’ And that’s exactly what this administration is doing.”

Ocasio-Cortez also called out Cheney, tweeting, “Hey Rep. Cheney, since you’re so eager to ‘educate me,’ I’m curious: What do YOU call building mass camps of people being detained without a trial? How would you dress up DHS’s mass separation of thousands children at the border from their parents?” 

Hey Rep. Cheney, since you’re so eager to “educate me,” I’m curious:

What do YOU call building mass camps of people being detained without a trial?

How would you dress up DHS’s mass separation of thousands children at the border from their parents? https://t.co/OOfrrfa1Ew

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 18, 2019 

Ocasio-Cortez refused to retract her comments despite criticism from lawmakers including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas).

On Wednesday, she tweeted that “I will never apologize for calling these camps what they are. If that makes you uncomfortable, fight the camps – not the nomenclature.”

DHS ripped 1000s of children from their parents & put them in cages w inhumane conditions.

They call their cells “dog pounds” & “freezers.”

I will never apologize for calling these camps what they are.

If that makes you uncomfortable, fight the camps – not the nomenclature. https://t.co/eJpJWeYiot

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 19, 2019

The New York freshman representative also accused Cheney of “directly and explicitly compared concentration camps on our border to the Holocaust,” adding that Republicans made the “intentional wild jump … for the explicit purpose of eliciting and manipulating pain for political fear.”

Reminder: the member who directly + explicitly compared concentration camps on our border to the Holocaust was *Liz Cheney.*

The horrors of the Holocaust went beyond the use of concentration camps, yet camps were part of the process.

They have also been used before and after.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 24, 2019

“Reminder: the member who directly + explicitly compared concentration camps on our border to the Holocaust was *Liz Cheney,*” she tweeted. “The horrors of the Holocaust went beyond the use of concentration camps, yet camps were part of the process. They have also been used before and after.”