Email Address Given to Ocasio-Cortez Beau Sparks Heated Exchange

(Bloomberg) -- We made it through Valentines Day -- but barely -- before critics of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to her boyfriend after finding out he’d been granted a “house.gov” email address.

On Friday morning, a tweet from a reporter at the National Review went viral, as most things “AOC” things do.

“While you were having a nice Valentine’s Day, @AOC decided to put her boyfriend on staff -- drawing a salary on the taxpayer’s dime. Nice to see her adapting to the swamp so quickly,” the conservative magazine’s Luke Thompson said on his Twitter feed.

Other conservative voices piled on, with Katrina Pierson, an adviser to President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, who suggested that “her jobs for everyone starts with her boyfriend. Pure socialism, government chooses the winners and losers.”

The 29-year-old freshman New York lawmaker responded to the original tweet within an hour, suggesting the author check his facts.

The youngest member of the House has been garnering media attention for months, since knocking off a veteran Democratic lawmaker in the 2018 primary. “Marie Claire” magazine wrote a feature in January on her boyfriend, Riley Roberts.

She’s been on “60 Minutes” and the “Daily Show.” “Vogue” wrote that she’s a double lefty -- both left handed and a democratic socialist.

She’s No Fad

“Vanity Fair” ranked Ocasio-Cortez on its 2018 New Establishment list in November. She said, “I’m going to make some Democrats mad if they’re trying to deliver paydays for Wall Street donors.”

Some top Democratic strategists have said she’d already be a front-runner for president if she didn’t fall short of 35 year minimum age the U.S. requires for its top position.

“I don’t think she’s a fad,” David Axelrod, chief strategist for Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns told “Vanity Fair.”

Ocasio-Cortez, like Trump, isn’t quiet on social media. She posted on Twitter a dozen times on Friday, retweeting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Bernie Sanders, and joking about pizza coupons. Her 3.1 million Twitter followers exceed those of Pelosi, at 2.3 million, and dwarf the 807,000 who follow Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the social media site.

“I can’t think of a comparison with a freshman in Congress who has had so much influence so quickly,” said Brian Fallon, who served as Hillary Clinton’s national press secretary in 2016.

So far, she’s been vocal in the Capitol Building too.

On Friday, Ocasio-Cortez took the spotlight again on plans to introduce a bill with other Democrats to block Trump’s emergency declaration, drawing reaction from at least one co-sponsor, Representative Ruben Gallego of Arizona.

To contact the reporter on this story: Hailey Waller in New York at hwaller@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Ludden at jludden@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny, Linus Chua

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