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AOC ignores Marjorie Taylor Greene’s incessant Twitter pleas for a public ‘head to head’

MTG says a debate ‘would be informative for the American People’ with her degree in business administration and AOC’s degree in economics

Stuti Mishra
Friday 16 April 2021 10:45 BST
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At a town hall last month, MTG speaks about climate crisis and questions the need to spend money on it

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has ignored Marjorie Taylor Greene’s public challenge to debate the green new deal after the Republican lawmaker sent a series of tweets.

Ms Greene, known for her controversial views against the climate crisis, challenged Ms Ocasio-Cortez after her comment on President Joe Biden’s recent $2 trillion climate-focused infrastructure package, calling it “disappointing” and not enough. 

Ms Greene on Wednesday wrote in a series of tweets tagging AOC: "I’d like to challenge you to a debate on the Green New Deal economic policy. Since you sponsored the Green New Deal and have a degree in Economics, I’m sure you are more than qualified."

She said that with her degree in business administration and experience running a company and Ms Ocasio-Cortez’s degree in economics, a debate “would be informative for the American People.”

She continued, writing that the American people "deserve to hear the two sides with pro’s [sic] and cons."

She also suggested that both Ms Greene and AOC could choose a moderator and then negotiate with a major news network hosting the said debate. "Let’s do this for The People," she wrote. "What do you say?" 

Several hours later, Ms Greene tweeted tagging the New York representative again, writing: “People are saying they would pay money to see it. We could debate pay per view style? And the money raised could be split between us for our choosing of where it goes. What do you think?

Ms Ocasio-Cortez, who has been a leading proponent of the Green New Deal and sponsored it in 2019, did not respond to Ms Greene’s comments.

Ms Greene, who has garnered the reputation of a conspiracy theorist with her support to QAnon and has often endorsed violence including harassing school shooting survivors for their anti-gun stands, has been a critic of the Green New Deal owing to its cost.

Last month, speaking at a townhall about climate crisis, Ms Greene asked: “How much taxes and how much money did the people back in the Ice Age spend to warm up the earth?”

“Maybe perhaps we live on a ball that rotates around the sun, that flies through the universe, and maybe our climate just changes.” (NASA reports that at least 97 per cent of climate scientists agree the climate crisis is extremely likely due to human activities. )

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