Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is "totally out-of-touch" with the toll the coronavirus outbreak has taken on oil and gas industry workers, former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Thursday.
Sanders, who is a Fox News contributor, laid into the progressive lawmaker and author of the "Green New Deal" for gloating in a now-deleted tweet about the industry collapse. "You absolutely love to see it. This along with record low-interest rates means it’s the right time for a worker-led, mass investment in green infrastructure to save our planet.”
"Her totally out-of-touch lack of understanding of that is mind-blowing," Sanders told Fox News' Fox & Friends."
Another 4.4 million Americans filed for unemployment claims last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday, as massive job losses caused by the pandemic continue unabated.
"This is also a person who may want to go back to her roots and remember that most Americans – unlike those in Congress – have to show up in order to get paid, and that they don't have the luxury of not doing their job and still being able to provide for their family like she does as a member of Congress," Sanders said.
"There are people who are really hurting," Sanders added. "The president is looking for ways to protect them, to help them. She might want to join in that effort instead of putting people down who are struggling and trying to figure out how best to help their families and provide that food."
"She might want to go back and remember that when she was a bartender and not a member of Congress, she didn't have that luxury," Sanders chided.
"She had to show up to do her job in order to get a paycheck, and there are millions of Americans [who] are like that [and who] need a paycheck — not just for the money, but also their sense of sanity and their ability to be able to get out and do what they do best and that's work hard, because that is who the American people are."