Ocasio-Cortez blasts GOP for going ‘all in’ on Hyde-Smith

Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) blasted the GOP for throwing its weight behind Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) in her runoff election, despite her controversial comments.

“@cindyhydesmith said she’d ‘be on the front row’ at a ‘public hanging’ and won a Senate seat,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “The GOP admits below they went ‘all in’ for her race. This is the Republican Party National org.”

“No GOP member gets to pretend this ‘doesn’t represent’ them unless they disavow it.”

.@cindyhydesmith said she’d “be on the front row” at a “public hanging” and won a Senate seat.

The GOP admits below they went “all in” for her race. This is the Republican Party National org.

No GOP member gets to pretend this “doesn’t represent” them unless they disavow it. https://t.co/nGxtyVoryw

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) November 29, 2018

Hyde-Smith, who won Mississippi’s Senate runoff election against Democrat Mike Espy earlier this week, sparked controversy during the campaign when she said that she liked one of her political supporters so much that she would sit in the “front row” of a “public hanging” with him.

“I would fight a circle saw for him,” she said of the supporter. “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.”

{mosads}Hyde-Smith apologized for the statement and said it was an “exaggerated expression of regard” for the supporter that she made in jest.

Some Republicans have defended Hyde-Smith.

“There’s been a lot of mock outrage about this statement that she made,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told Fox News on Wednesday regarding Hyde-Smith’s comment. “There was nothing at all racial about it.”

After the video of her statement surfaced, she lost the support of a variety of high-profile donors, including Walmart, AT&T and Major League Baseball.

She was also criticized when a 2014 photo reemerged of her wearing a Confederate soldier’s cap earlier this month.