Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez On Cardi B: ‘Bronx Girls Are Gonna Re-Open The Government’

Yes, TMZ is now catching up to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for its trademark surprise interviews, asking about both the government shutdown and her fellow Bronx native Cardi B.

The gossip site approached the freshman congresswoman in Washington this week to ask what she thought of rapper Cardi B’s recent viral Instagram video about the government shutdown.

The video by TMZ was taken Thursday while Ocasio-Cortez and another member of the House were looking to meet with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in order to discuss ending the government shutdown, which is the longest in history. When the cameras caught up to AOC, she speculated that McConnell was “wandering the woods somewhere.”

“We’re just a couple of freshman congresswomen,” she said. “And the House has passed several times, we have voted to open the government, and we know that we have secured Republican votes to open the government. So all we need to do is have Senator McConnell call the vote.” The social media-savvy congresswoman was also asked about the “Twitter class” she recently reportedly taught to several of her colleagues.

Ocasio-Cortez was then asked about the recent popular video posted by rapper Cardi B, in which Cardi blamed Trump for the shutdown. The congresswoman praised the rapper for speaking out.

“Bronx girls are gonna re-open the government, okay?,” AOC said, as she walked into a waiting elevator.

Ocasio-Cortez and Cardi B are both natives of The Bronx and around the same age as well.

In the Instagram video this week, which has more than 3.4 million likes as of noon on Friday, the rapper assailed President Trump for the shutdown.

“Trump is now ordering — as in summonsing — federal workers to go back to work without getting paid,” Cardi B said. “Now, I don’t wanna hear y’all [expletive] talking about, ‘Oh, but Obama shutdown the government for 17 days,’—Yeah, b**ch! For health care. So your grandma could check her blood pressure.” She also said something humorously off-color about gynecological visits.

In a 2016 New Yorker profile of TMZ, it was reported that the site once considered setting up a bureau in Washington, D.C., called TMZ DC, to cover politics the way it does Hollywood. But the idea was ultimately abandoned because while TMZ has long relied on anonymous tips to feed them stories, in Washington, the potential tipsters are government employees who could be prosecuted for leaks. The site has occasionally jumped into politics, however.