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‘My Own Friends Roast Me Harder’: Ocasio-Cortez Mocks NYT Columnist Who Rage-Quit Twitter

U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) speaks to members of the media following a televised town hall event on the Green New Deal in the Bronx borough of New York City, New York, U.S., March 29, 2019. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

Virginia Kruta Associate Editor
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Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez poked fun at New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, who left Twitter on Tuesday after George Washington University professor Dave Karpf called him a “bedbug.”

“Imagine being on Twitter and having the worst thing you’re called in a given day is ‘bedbug.’ My own friends roast me harder than that,” the freshman congresswoman joked.

The whole saga began when a leaked email revealed that there was a bedbug problem in the NYT building, and Karpf joked, “The bedbugs are a metaphor. The bedbugs are Bret Stephens.” (RELATED: NYT’s Bret Stephens Lets The Bedbugs Bite — He Just Quit Twitter After Being Called A Name)

Stephens then fired off an email, cc’ing Karpf’s boss.

And Karpf’s boss responded as well, publicly sharing his email response and inviting Stephens to come to the campus and “speak about civil discourse in the digital age.”

Ocasio-Cortez also responded to that, saying that it was “pretty concerning that this guy abused his position to try to get someone fired over something so insignificant.”


Stephens, arguing that being called a “bedbug” was “dehumanizing” and making connections to “totalitarian regimes,” said on MSNBC on Tuesday that he was leaving Twitter. “I’m going to be careful with my words because I know these are going to be examined carefully,”he said. “I think Twitter brings out the worst in its users.”

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