Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t regret being a bartender one bit, she says.
“As always, I‘m proud of my work in restaurants,” the congresswoman tweeted Sunday night, hours after taking fire from British journalist Piers Morgan for being “a bartender 18 months ago.”
“I also worked for Sen. Ted Kennedy, piloted literacy projects in the South Bronx, studied Development Economics in W Africa, served as an Educational Director & won international science competitions before I ran for office, too,” she said.
“Working people that GOP dismiss as ‘just a waitress/cook/etc’ contain multitudes, & are just as capable & intelligent as anyone,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “Classism – judging someone’s character by their income – is disappointing to see from them. What is so appalling to GOP about having an honest job?”
Morgan had been responding to a tweet that Ocasio-Cortez posted late Saturday, blasting President Trump for allowing the First Daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner — both unpaid White House advisers — to attend the G-20 summit in Japan last week when he targeted the Democratic lawmaker on Twitter Sunday.
Ocasio-Cortez’s tweet said: “It may be shocking to some, but being someone’s daughter actually isn’t a career qualification. It hurts our diplomatic standing when the President phones it in & the world moves on. The US needs our President working the G20. Bringing a qualified diplomat couldn’t hurt either.” To which Morgan replied, “Could be worse… Ivanka could have been a bar-tender 18 months ago.”
Ocasio-Cortez clapped back minutes later, telling the former CNN host: “Actually, that would make government better – not worse. Imagine if more people in power spent years of their lives actually working for a living. We’d probably have healthcare and living wages by now.”
Speaking Sunday night, the New York legislator said: “Some of the most nuanced, intelligent, & grounded people I‘ve ever met weren’t at BU, MIT or Harvard events when I was a student. They were the plumbers & waitresses I hung out with at happy hour, who had ferocious intellectual curiosity *and* a lived context of the real world. In other words, Republicans who criticize my being a waitress as evidence of lacking skill can take their classism to the trash. You are insulting the capacities and potential of virtually every working person in America (&the 🌎) for having experience that’s earned, not bought. (And that’s if they even take out their own trash, which I doubt).”
Morgan had yet to respond to the posts as of 8 p.m. Sunday.