Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was on the Mehdi Hasan show last night on MSNBC, and they talked about a whole bunch of things, some of which you might agree with, some of which you might not. A lot of it was Israel/Hamas stuff. That’s not what this post is about.
Rather, in this post we want to highlight Ocasio-Cortez’s very funny sick burnz at Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, who has basically been in Congress since the January 6 attacks — and immediately voted to overturn the election for Donald Trump — but who is nonetheless running for speaker, like that’s something just anybody can do. (And we guess for Republicans, an un-governing party of deplorable fascist ungovernables, it is. Don’t need skills when the job description is “go on Fox and say today’s Republican lie talking points.”)
Here’s what AOC said to Hasan last night (video via Acyn):
He’s only served one term in the US House of Representatives. The last thing that he did in the Oversight Committee was attempt to submit falsified evidence to an impeachment hearing. I think it helps to know where all the bathrooms are before you run for the US House of Representatives, personally, and I think it helps to have some real experience in one of most complex legislative bodies in the world before you try to run it.
“I think it helps to know where all the bathrooms are” before you try running the place, she said. (Could be useful if you’re looking for a place to hide from the next group of Trump supporters that tries to overthrow the government when he loses an election.)
As Wonkette noted this morning, Ocasio-Cortez has been drawing attention this weekend to the fact that Donalds’s latest claim to fame was the sad turd he dropped during Oversight Committee Chair James Comer’s failure of a debut impeachment hearing against Joe Biden. Donalds’s sad turd was one of many sad turds within Comer’s great big sad turd.
A reminder: Donalds displayed heavily edited texts from Hunter Biden, to give the impression that he and his Uncle James were planning crimes. But when you read the full texts, it wasn’t that at all, but rather that divorced single dad with a drug problem Hunter was in a shitty place and was asking his family for financial help.
Once again, we are confronted with the fact that the only Biden “crime” Republicans have uncovered is that Joe Biden loves Hunter far more than Donald Trump will ever love Junior.
AOC called Donalds out for that shit during the hearing not long after it happened, but there were so many flaming embarrassments for Republicans that day, it was easy to miss it if you weren’t paying close attention to every word.
There will be much Republican failure to observe over this week and next and a bunch of weeks after that, but Media Matters has compiled all the evidence that shows that Byron Donalds definitely appears to be Fox News’s pick for the next speaker.
How many times has Donalds been on Fox News since August of 2017? That would be 193, far more than any other person running for speaker.
And more:
Donalds has the fifth-most weekday Fox appearances of all elected officials since January 2021, when he began his first term in office. Only Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Jordan, Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL), and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) received more interviews on the network during this time.
Donalds is a particular favorite of Fox’s prime-time hosts, who serve as influential kingmakers within the GOP. He has appeared in Fox weekday prime time at least 67 times, including 38 interviews on The Ingraham Angle and 25 interviews on Hannity. The only other speaker candidates who have appeared in prime time are Johnson (14 times) and Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK) (once).
And guess who’s pushing Donalds now, ever since his campaign to get Jim Jordan the gavel failed so spectacularly?
Surprise, he spends a lot of time on all the other right-wing media too. You know, instead of governing.
Yep, it’s time to expend a lot more energy making fun of Byron Donalds. How could Republicans fail harder than Jim Jordan? This is how.
OPEN THREAD.
Evan Hurst on Twitter right here.
@evanjosephhurst on Threads!
I have profiles those other places but I think I forgot how to log on.
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