Democratic New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez threw a temper tantrum after Federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. Northern District of Texas ruled Friday to suspend FDA approval of mifepristone, a drug used to perform medication abortions.
Kacsmaryk stayed the decision for a week but another judge, Thomas Owen Rice of the U.S. District for the Eastern District of Washington, ruled in a different case that the Food and Drug Administration was prohibited from “altering the status quo and rights as it relates to the availability of Mifepristone.”
So the case will go to the Supreme Court but AOC was not happy. She went on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 to vent where she showed her true colors and told Joe Biden to just ignore the ruling she didn’t like.
COOPER: More reaction now to that and a separate ruling in Washington State on the same drug going in the opposite direction, all of it likely headed to the Supreme Court.
Joining us, New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez. Thanks so much for being with us. When you’ve heard the news this afternoon, a couple of hours ago. What did you think?
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): Well, you know, I think rulings like this, and I think we’ve seen from the FDA and also from activity in Congress that some of these rulings.
I think we’ve been preparing and anticipating for there being these egregious overreaches by members of the judiciary appointed by a right-wing Republican Party, whose goal for a very long time was to just pack these Courts with partisan Judges often under qualified or completely unqualified for their role.
And so there has been thought I believe given to this. Senator Ron Wyden has already issued statements, for example, advising what we should do in situations like this, which I concur, which is that I believe that the Biden administration should ignore this ruling.
I think that we, you know, the Courts have the legitimacy, and they rely on the legitimacy of their rulings. And what they are currently doing is engaged in an unprecedented and dramatic erosion of the legitimacy of the Courts.
It is the Justices themselves through the deeply partisan and unfounded nature of these rulings that are undermining their own enforcement.
COOPER: So what you’re saying, the Biden administration should ignore this Court. But what does that look like? What does that actually mean?
OCASIO-CORTEZ: You know, I think the interesting thing when it comes to a ruling is that it relies on enforcement. And it is up to the Biden administration to enforce, to choose whether or not to enforce such a ruling.
COOPER: But is that — do we want to live in a world where the government can decide to ignore a Federal Court ruling?
OCASIO-CORTEZ: Well, no, of course. I mean, I do think that this — that it raises these important questions, and do think that when we look at, and there are serious questions that the FDA and the Biden administration is going to have to figure out and how exactly we map this out.
But on the other hand, what we are also seeing is a power grab over our Courts in which the laws passed by Congress, and the rules and policies passed by the executive branch now are going to require unanimous consent from 650 District Court Judges, many of which are appointed with even, you know, the American Bar Association, saying that they are completely unfit for the role.
AOC: Mifepristone has been legal and in the market for 23 years. This is like a judge coming out and outlawing Claritin or Aspirin or Plan B because they felt like it pic.twitter.com/OZST5cyJOK
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 8, 2023
AOC: I believe that The Biden Administration should ignore this ruling. The courts rely on the legitimacy of their rulings and what they are currently doing is engaging in an unprecedented erosion of their legitimacy pic.twitter.com/Szx9xXYBNN
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 8, 2023
