Republican congressman Chip Roy, of Texas, sent a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, demanding that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) apologize for slamming Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Twitter earlier on Thursday.
“It has come to my attention that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sent out a tweet a few hours ago in which she accused Senator Ted Cruz, in essence, of attempted murder,” Roy wrote in his letter.
“As a member of this body who disagreed with ‘objections’ to the electors and who has expressed publicly my concerns about the events leading to January 6th, it is completely unacceptable behavior for a Member of Congress to make this kind of scurrilous charge against another member in the House or Senate for simply engaging in speech and debate regarding electors as they interpreted the Constitution,” he continued.
“I ask you to call on her to immediately apologize and retract her comments.”
Roy then threatened to use “alternative means” to force Ocasio-Cortez to apologize if she doesn’t do it on her own.
“If Representative Ocasio-Cortez does not apologize immediately, we will be forced to find alternative means to condemn this regrettable statement,” Roy, wrote in a letter to Pelosi on Thursday.
Ocasio-Cortez earlier Thursday rebuked Cruz after he co-signed her condemnation of stock-trading app Robinhood halting trading of GameStop stocks after a number of Reddit users targeted the stock.
“I am happy to work with Republicans on this issue where there’s common ground, but you almost had me murdered 3 weeks ago so you can sit this one out,” the New York Democrat tweeted in response. “Happy to work w/ almost any other GOP that aren’t trying to get me killed. In the meantime if you want to help, you can resign.
Cruz, along with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), was among several Republicans in the Senate who led an effort to object to the 2020 election results when Congress convened to certify President Biden’s win. Their effort was one of the factors that led to the Capitol riot that ensued the same day.
