'Blood is on your hands': Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blames Trump’s GOP enablers for Capitol siege

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York City witnessed domestic terrorism and violent insurrection first-hand when, on January 6, a mob of pro-Trump extremists stormed the U.S. Capitol Building in the hope of preventing Congress from certifying President-elect Joe Biden's electoral college victory. In an angry video, the progressive Democratic congresswoman makes it clear that she not only holds President Donald Trump responsible for the attack, but also, the many Republicans who have been Trump enablers despite his extremism.

"You were a part of it when you excused the lawbreaking," Ocasio-Cortez passionately tells Trump's GOP enablers in the video. "You were a part of it, you were a part of it, you were a part of it."

At least five people have died because of the Capitol siege, including police officers — and as Ocasio-Cortez sees it, ex-members of the Trump Administration who waited until January 6 or later to resign are offering too little too late.

Ocasio-Cortez declares, "Those five people's blood is on your hands… And they think that resigning is going to clean that blood off their hands. It is always on them. They are forever stained with the deaths of five people, especially when they did not invoke the 25^th Amendment to remove this president when they had the power to do so. Cowards! Cowards! (They) couldn't even pretend to stand up in the memory of these officers they pretend to care about."

The congresswoman added, "I don't want to hear or see the Republican Party talk about blue lives ever again. This was never about safety for them. It was always a slogan, because if they actually cared about rule of law, they would speak up when people break the law. They would speak up. They would enforce fairness."

This week on Instagram, Ocasio-Cortez said that during the storming of the Capitol Building, she feared she was "going to die" and that "QAnon and White supremacist sympathizers" in the U.S. House of Representatives would "create opportunities to allow me to be hurt, kidnapped, etc."

Far-right QAnon supporters in the GOP who were elected to the House in November include Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado. In September, Greene was widely criticized for posting, on Facebook, an image of herself holding a gun alongside images of Ocasio-Cortez and two other progressive Democrats: Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Greene wrote, "We need strong conservative Christians to go on the offense against these socialists who want to rip our country apart."

Boebert, meanwhile, is facing widespread condemnation this week for tweeting about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's location during the Capitol Building Siege. And Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a New Jersey Democrat, has revealed that she witnessed members of Congress conducting "reconnaissance" tours through the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, January 5, the day before the attack.