Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) didn't respond directly to a question Monday about whether to denounce the autocratic Nicolas Maduro regime in Venezuela, but she took it as an opportunity to attack U.S. special envoy Elliott Abrams.
At a press conference for her new congressional office's opening in Queens, a reporter inquired about the situation unfolding in Venezuela. The country's economy has collapsed under Maduro socialism, leading to food and medicine shortages and violent crackdowns against protests by his government.
Like Omar and Ocasio-Cortez, he had no condemnation for Maduro, but unlike Omar he took the AOC route of being fairly non-committal, as National Review lays out here, along with responses from. When specifically asked if she would denounce Maduro, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez refused to denounce the Venezuelan dictator and instead spoke out against. New York’s democratic socialist Representative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has made it very clear that she loves the idea of socialism, and wants it implemented in the United States as soon as yesterday. However, one strong argument against her wishes is the desolation of Venezuela as overseen by the socialist leader Nicholas Maduro. Maduro, the man whose socialism has driven three million Venezuelans out of the country, left the remainders fighting for scraps in dumpsters with machetes, and destroyed all medical care. In roughly two decades, Maduro and his predecessor Chavez essentially annihilated Venezuela’s once-mighty petroleum industry and destroyed what was Latin America’s wealthiest economy.
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'As a democratic socialist, I'm wondering what are your thoughts on the Venezuelan crisis happening right now and if you would denounce the Maduro regime?' a reporter asked.
Ocasio-Cortez said it was a 'complex issue' and important to approach the humanitarian crisis there 'very carefully.'
'I think it's important that any solution that we have centers the Venezuelan people and centers the democracy of Venezuelan people first,' she said. 'I am very concerned about U.S. interventionism in Venezuela, and I oppose it, especially when we talk about a figure like U.S. special envoy Elliott Abrams here. He's pled guilty to several crimes related to Iran-Contra.'
'I am generally opposed to U.S. interventionism as a principle, but particularly under this administration and under his leadership, I think it's a profound mistake,' she added.
The Trump administration is pressuring Maduro to step down after a re-election widely considered a scam that circumvented the Venezuelan constitution. The United States and dozens of other countries have backed Juan Guaido, head of Venezuela's National Assembly, as the country's rightful interim president and condemned Maduro as a dictator.
Maduro has the support of such countries as China and Russia, with the latter accusing the U.S. of preparing a military intervention to install Guaido, according to Reuters.
Ocasio-Cortez's broadside at Abrams comes after a fellow left-wing freshman lawmaker, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), attacked him as a genocide-promoting, amoral interventionist at a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last month. She called him 'Mr. Adams' at the outset of her questioning and, as anti-Trump columnist Max Boot put it, read 'haltingly from a sheet of paper' that seemed like it was pulled from Al Jazeera.
Ocasio-Cortez praised Omar's questioning for feeling like 'justice.' Abrams pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress concerning the Reagan-era scandal and was later pardoned by President George H. W. Bush.
Omar has accused the Trump administration of backing a 'coup' in Venezuela to install 'far right opposition.' Guaido's party is considered center-left. She retweeted Venezuelan and Russian state media in the aftermath of calling the popular opposition to Maduro a 'coup.'
Ocasio Cortez Maduro
Venezuelan expatriate: Socialism destroyed my home
A Venezuelan citizen who left the crisis-stricken country in his teens for America is speaking out against socialism and the Maduro regime -- and giving a warning to anyone who may support the Green New Deal backed by liberal Democrats including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Ocasio Cortez Supports Maduro
Daniel Di Martino, a college student who grew up in Venezuela before his family left the socialist country when he was 16, said Monday on “The Story with Martha MacCallum” that his family went from flourishing in the upper middle class to making just two dollars a day under now-disputed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and former President Hugo Chavez.
“By the time I left Venezuela in 2016 we had a blackout every week -- and I was privileged,” Di Martino told Martha MacCallum.
He said he saw parallels between what he experienced in Venezuela and the rise of socialism in America. “I hear what I heard from the socialist regime in Venezuela, ‘everything is alright.’”
Ocasio Cortez Maduro
He continued, “People are starving in Venezuela because policies such as the one that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [supported] in her Green New Deal, which in reality is just the ‘red new deal’ which is just a socialist wish list, would destroy the U.S. economy and lead us into the path of Venezuela.”
President Trump on Monday spoke in Miami in front of a crowd comprised mostly of Venezuelan and Cuban Americans and asked military officials loyal to Maduro to abandon him and accept opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country's new president.
'We seek a peaceful transition of power, but all options are open,' Trump said.
Di Martino outlined his family's struggles in Venezuela in a USA Today op-ed.
“I watched what was once one of the richest countries in Latin America gradually fall apart under the weight of big government,” Di Martino wrote.
Fox News' Martha MacCallum contributed to this report.