New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Sunday became the first progressive House Democrat to call on Sen. Bob Menendez to resign following the former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair’s indictment last week on federal bribery charges.
Menendez (D-N.J.) and his wife, Nadine Menendez, were charged Friday with accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes—including gold bars, cash, home mortgage payments, and a Mercedes-Benz—from businessmen in exchange for influence. The indictment also accuses Menendez of giving “sensitive U.S. government information” to Egypt’s dictatorship.
Appearing on CBS‘ “Face the Nation,” Ocasio-Cortez said that “the situation is quite unfortunate, but I do believe that it is in the best interest for Sen. Menendez to resign in this moment.”
“Consistency matters. It shouldn’t matter whether it’s a Republican or a Democrat. The details in this indictment are extremely serious. They involve the nature of not just his, but all of our seats in Congress,” added Ocasio-Cortez, who is the vice-ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.
BREAKING: @AOC calls on Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) to resign following his indictment on federal bribery charges, "to maintain the integrity of the seat.”
“It shouldn't matter whether it's a Republican or a Democrat. The details in this indictment are extremely serious.” pic.twitter.com/QAe2H0qmJi
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) September 24, 2023
Asked for her reaction to Menendez’s assertion that some of his congressional colleagues “are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat,” Ocasio-Cortez said: “As a Latina, there are absolutely ways in which there is systemic bias, but I think what is here in this indictment is quite clear. And I believe it is in the best interest to maintain the integrity of the seat.”
Ocasio-Cortez joins a growing list of Democrats including Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.) and Reps. Jeff Jackson (N.C.), Dean Phillips (Minn.), Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), Tom Malinowski (N.J.), Frank Pallone (N.J.), Mikie Sherill (N.J.), Bill Pascrell (N.J.), and Andy Kim (N.J.) who are urging Menendez to resign.
On Saturday, Kim said he would run for Menendez’s Senate seat amid the senator’s refusal to resign.
“I feel compelled to run against him. Not something I expected to do, but N.J. deserves better,” Kim wrote in a fundraising pitch on social media. “We cannot jeopardize the Senate or compromise our integrity.”
While defiantly declaring that he is “not going anywhere,” Menendez did step down from his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a position he had held since 2021.
Following her “Face the Nation” appearance, Ocasio-Cortez flew to Missouri to stand in solidarity with striking United Auto Workers members. The congresswoman said the nation is facing “a crisis of inequality,” while hailing President Joe Biden’s planned trip to join Michigan UAW workers on the picket line Tuesday as “a historic event.”
“We have never seen in modern history a president show up to a picket line like this,” she said.
Want to talk about corruption? Clarence Thomas and his traitor wife are the poster children for corruption. When over a hundred congress members stand WITH the violent insurrectionists, and Gymbo Jordan is over 500 days in violation of the law and runs a goddamn committee threatening the DOJ, then it gets tiring for only ONE side of the aisle to follow the law. Sure, he should resign, but the lawless Republicans have created this culture in congress. By the way, senator Burr and his brother in law BOTH broke laws doing insider trading and BOTH walked. Both of my senators, in a state that has one of the largest military bases in the country, still support this traitor with 91 indictments and multiple rape accusations. So until there’s some GODDAMN equal treatment, ho phucking hum.
I’m getting tired of this whole “It would send a message to Republicans who we (Democrats/progressives) are” message.
THEY.
DON’T.
CARE.
Nor do their supporters.
They are out there–en masse–giving Trump a complete and total pass on HIS MANY indictments.
If a poll came out with the phrasing, “Given the many major Democrats calling for Senator Menendez to resign because of the indictments brought against him, do you support the idea that Republicans in Congress and running for President should call for Donald Trump to cease his presidential run because of the indictments against him?”, I will just about guarantee you, the results would break down in a pretty partisan fashion: Democratic voters would overwhelmingly (at least 85%) support the idea while Republican voters would be far less supportive (I’m thinking probably in the 25% range–at most) of the idea.
Republican politicians and Republican voters DO NOT CARE about *their* side doing bad things. Hell, look at how often the right has called for “progressive” members of the Supreme Court to recuse themselves because there’s a 50 degrees of separation between the Justice and the case being brought before them while there’s direct proof of a conflict of interest involving one of the right-wing members of SCOTUS and the right offers up crickets (and when progressives call them out, these members PINKY-SWEAR they can rule “impartially” and refuse to recuse themselves). If Sonia Sotomayor had done even a fraction of what Thomas has been accused of, the right-wing would be calling for hearings to impeach her and Fox “News” and “News”Max and OANN would be leading the call 24/7.
You’re absolutely correct. But we need to keep our own moral compass running properly. The Republicans know they’re in deep shit. They’re struggling to survive. We just need to clean our own house and they’re going to continue to burn theirs down. But it won’t be for lack of knowing that there were options and options that we even demonstrated for them.
Mostly agree with you here but it’s a slippery slope. I still miss Al Franken.
Totally agree Joseph. Until the democrats start screaming and acting like we are literally in a war with a CULT, their taking the high road will lead to their defeat. CNN is doing a show demonstrating just how destructive this cult is, interviewing brain dead adults who believe JFK and JFK Jr. are still alive. They also believe those two along with Trump are direct descendants of Jesus. There’s no reasoning with them. None.
Summer Lee has joined them.
I can’t really criticisize Sen Menendez for having almost $500K in cash at his home. After all, I try to keep at least $9.99 at my place for emergencies….