Ocasio-Cortez Says Trump’s Verbal Attacks Create Safety Threat

(Bloomberg) -- Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said President Donald Trump’s verbal attacks on her and her progressive colleagues are a threat to their safety.

“The whole point is to target us,” the New York Democrat said in a brief interview. “The president is evolving as predicted, deeper into the rhetoric of racism which evolves into violence.”

At a political rally Wednesday night in North Carolina, Trump renewed his attacks on Ocasio-Cortez and the three other first-term Democrats who he began targeting over the weekend. His supporters at the event chanted “send her back” as the president spoke about Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar, a progressive Democrat who is arrived in the U.S. as a refugee from Somalia. All four women are minorities.

Ocasio-Cortez said “of course” the continued verbal attacks from the president and his allies have her worried about her safety.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that even before the rally she had talked to Capitol security officials to make sure lawmakers “have adequate protection.”

The chanting at Trump’s rally have raised concerns among some Republicans as well as Democrats.

“Those chants have no place in our party or no place in this country. Simple as that,” House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said Thursday. He added that the “core of this disagreement” is about “socialism versus freedom.”

--With assistance from Daniel Flatley.

To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Anna Edgerton

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