Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attempted to rewrite history in real time during her Friday night MSNBC town hall event with host Chris Hayes.
As the freshman Democrat waxed on about the time in history when her party was at its strongest — during the Great Depression leading up to World War II — she claimed that the 22nd Amendment was ratified in order to prevent President Franklin Delano Roosevelt from running again. (RELATED: Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal Is So Urgent That She’s Mad The GOP Wants To Vote On It)
According to AOC, Congress amended the Constitution to prevent FDR from being re-elected:
“They had to amend the Constitution of the United States to make sure Roosevelt dd not get reelected.”
(Reminder, FDR died in office in 1945; the 22nd Amendment came in 1947) pic.twitter.com/DImHj0caVy
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 31, 2019
The 22nd Amendment reads as follows:
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.
That amendment was passed by the Republican Congress in 1947 — two years after FDR died — and was ratified in 1951. While it was most likely a rebuke of FDR for his decision to ignore the two-term precedent set by George Washington, it could not have prevented him from running again.