Ask Republican operatives, and they’re all too happy to have progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez be the face of the Democratic Party. It appears the Trump administration agrees.
The White House sent out an email on Wednesday blasting the New York lawmaker and naming her as the “Democrat Party leader.”
“AOC, Democrat Party leader, calls for abolishing ICE,” the email read before it went on to praise Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for their work.
The 35-year-old lawmaker is a favorite boogieman for the MAGA crowd.
While Ocasio-Cortez has a massive following, including successfully harnessing the power of social media with her more than 12 million X followers, nine million Instagram followers, and four million followers on TikTok, she does not actually hold a Democratic Party leadership role.
That has not stopped giddy Republicans from trying to make her their villain in political messaging.
The GOP has long painted the left wing of the Democratic Party as the party as a whole. As Democrats struggle to find a unified voice in their fight against Trump, the administration is promoting AOC to fill the void, believing she is an easy target.
The White House email on Wednesday quoted the congresswoman stating the agency formed in 2003 “should not exist” and dubbed her “the leader” more than once.
Republicans have piled on, labeling the outspoken AOC as the party leader ever since she made a name for herself as a young upstart who ousted a longtime Democratic House leader in 2018 while closely aligning with Senator Bernie Sanders.
In recent months, she has frequently generated headlines for joining Sanders on his ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ tour, attracting huge crowds.
She also has been one of the most vocal Democratic critics of Trump’s immigration crackdown and sparred with the president’s border czar Tom Homan over ICE arrests of undocumented immigrants.
However, on the hill, AOC lost her bid to lead the House Oversight Committee Democrats in the new Congress.
And while her name has been floated as a potential Senate challenger to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer or even as a 2028 contender, the congresswoman has not crystallized her future political ambitions just yet.
