Katie Porter And AOC Sheltered Together During Riots And Their Convo Will Destroy You
Porter said a terrified AOC hoped she wasn’t going to die on the day of the Capitol insurrection
During last night’s Instagram live video, New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (colloquially known as AOC) shared her harrowing account of what went down during the insurrection at the Capitol. Shortly after she went public with her story, Rep. Katie Porter gave an interview to MSNBC describing how they sheltered together during the hours-long riot.
Among the details AOC shared about the beginning of the insurrection was that she hid behind the door in her office bathroom once she realized something dangerous was going on. She said she stood there as she heard someone break in and shout, “Where is she? Where is she?”
“This was the moment where I thought everything was over,” she said, growing emotional. “I have never been quieter in my entire life. I thought I was going to die.”
During her live interview, Porter told Lawrence O’Donnell that AOC asked to be let into her office during the insurrection and immediately began opening doors and searching for a place to hide.
“The thing that will always stay with me was when I was saying ’Well, don’t worry, I’m a mom, I’m calm, I’ve got everything here we need, we could live for like a month in this office,” Porter said. “And [AOC] said ‘I just hope I get to be a mom. I hope I don’t die today.’”
Utterly heartbreaking. The terror AOC felt was wholly palpable to anyone watching her Instagram Live. Thankfully, she and Porter could trust one another during such a terrifying and dangerous time.
Porter also recalled that Ocasio-Cortez was wearing heels that day while she was wearing flats.
“I remember her saying to me, ‘I knew I shouldn’t have worn heels. How am I going to run?’” Porter said. ”And we went and we found her a pair of sneakers to wear from one of my staffers. So that she could run if she needed to literally run for her life.”
Since she was first sworn in back in 2019, AOC has been a constant target of attacks from her Republican colleagues (Rep. Ted Yoho publicly called her a “f*cking b*tch) and Donald Trump. Her family has received death threats that placed them under FBI protection for a brief period of time. She’s been on the receiving end of rape threats, death threats, and threats of violence simply for being influential in her progressive politics.
Why? For being one of the most confident, well-informed members of Congress, and using that confidence and knowledge to influence policy and hold corrupt people accountable for the dissolution of American democracy (if you haven’t watched her brilliantly own Mark Zuckerberg yet, it should be required viewing in every social studies class).
It’s no wonder she feared for her life on the day of the insurrection when so many Republicans — both in Congress and the mindless Trump cult followers) have made it abundantly clear they do not respect or value her life in any way.
Many colleagues of AOC and Porter corroborate the events of the attack and are also calling for anyone involved to resign from Congress for inciting the insurrection and even live-tweeting their whereabouts inside the Capitol building.
Porter said she and Ocasio-Cortez spent about six hours hiding in the office on Jan. 6.
“No one came to check on us,” Porter said. “We heard voices in the hallway, we didn’t know what they were, whether those were police officers, whether those were intruders, and so we just stayed dark, we shut the curtains, we turned our phones off, we silenced everything and we just sat as still and as quiet as we could be in the hope that they would just run on by.”
