Amazon is coming to New York after all, and AOC — who helped scuttle a deal to bring the company to Queens — couldn’t help but take a victory lap that quickly irked her critics.
“Won’t you look at that: Amazon is coming to NYC anyway – *without* requiring the public to finance shady deals, helipad handouts for Jeff Bezos, & corporate giveaways,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “Maybe the Trump admin should focus more on cutting public assistance to billionaires instead of poor families.”
Some folks had no patience for the Queens congresswoman’s boast, noting the Internet retailer’s new office space would bring significantly fewer jobs than the headquarters Amazon had planned to build in Long Island City.
“I bet a lot of shopkeepers and store owners in LIC would have loved those customers in the neighborhood instead of in manhattan [sic]. Plus, what they are taking in Manhattan is much smaller in scope than HQ2,” responded real estate entrepreneur Jason Haber.
Others were more blunt.
“You went from 25,000 Amazon jobs in your district to just 1,500 being offered OUTSIDE your district. You’re an idiot if you think this is a success for your constituents,” Caleb Hull, a director at the GOP-leaning political consulting firm Targeted Victory, said in a tweet of his own.
AOC shot back by noting Amazon’s original promise of 25,000 came with no guarantees.
“That 25k number was an unsubstantiated #, not a year 1 hiring figure [sic]. Nor was it a promise backed w/ consequences if it wasn’t met,” she said in response to a critic from the conservative Daily Caller website. “1,500 jobs off the bat is huge, & a much better deal than paying billions for a fairy tale that would’ve displaced many.”