As you well know, newly-elected President Joe Biden’s Inauguration Day was far not the most populated or attended. Naturally, this was due in part to the ongoing COVID pandemic, as well as the recent incursion of the Capitol building on January 6, making it nearly impossible for there to be crowds of almost any sort.
However, there could have been a lot more people there, such as Congress members, as they were invited. But most simply decided not to show up.
I’m you’re not surprised to learn that most Republican members weren’t at all excited about watching a man they think cheated his way into the White House get sworn in.
But what’s the excuse for the many Democrats and liberals who couldn’t grace the grounds with their presence?
For New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, she claimed she had better things to do. While she says she supports Biden as president and is definitely happy to have Trump gone, a Teamsters strike was going on in her district that she felt the need to attend, according to The Hill.
This might almost be commendable for the young congresswoman if it weren’t a lie and another excuse for her to be put in the limelight.
Yes, a Teamsters strike did occur, and yes, she did attend, garnering nearly all of the attention in the process.
But when she spoke to CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Thursday about her reasoning for not attending the Inauguration, the strike wasn’t given as the real goal.
Instead, she claims she was too afraid to attend and felt it would put her in danger, so she opted to forgo the Inauguration and go to the strike.
She said, “I think we also had very real security concerns as well, as you mentioned earlier. We still don’t yet feel safe around other members of Congress and–“
Cuomo cut her off, asking, “How many are “we?”
“I think a very considerable amount. A lot of members do not feel safe. In fact, just today–“
Cut off again… ”You really think that colleagues of yours in Congress may do you dirty?” Cuomo asked.
Yes, well, one just tried to bring a gun on the floor of the House today. I believe it was Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland. He tried to bring in a gun on to the House floor. For individuals who don’t know, guns are not allowed in the District of Columbia. And certainly the House floor is, there are separate House rules that prohibit the bringing in of firearms.”
AOC went on to explain, in her usual rambling and non-sensical way, that guns had been banned from the House way back during the Civil War and, therefore, it was a “violation of House rules” to “sneak firearms” in.
She stated that by Harris supposedly trying to “sneak” one in, he had “put all 435 Members of Congress in danger.”
And apparently, she could no longer trust her co-workers to be safe around.
There’s just one problem, well, a few actually.
One, it’s not illegal to have a gun in D.C. Hell, you can even have one in the Capitol, according to The Washington Post. However, it must be securely wrapped up or stored and unloaded.
Secondly, as even she pointed out, the alleged incident with Harris happened on Thursday, the day after the Inauguration, and her skipping of it. She can’t very well claim that a “dangerous” situation that occurred in the future was what kept her from watching Biden being sworn in.
And lastly, even if it had happened before the Inauguration, she had to know that the city was crawling with military troops commissioned to eliminate those exact kinds of threats.
Surely 26,000 National Guard troops would be enough to protect her and those in attendance of the Inauguration, right? I mean, in all of the Middle East, which spans about 3.5 million square miles, the U.S. has somewhere between 60,000 and 70,000 troops. D.C. is all of 68 square miles, and for the days leading up to and following the Inauguration, it housed almost half as many armed and well-trained men and women.
Besides, Harris wasn’t even in the city at the time, wanting to “avoid Washington that day,” according to a spokesman.
So what was her real reason for not attending? At this rate, we may never know, as she can’t seem to keep her stories straight. Not that we should be surprised. She’s not exactly known for her honesty.