Gosar defends violent AOC anime video he says depicts ‘battle for soul of America’

Far-right congressman claims video is a ‘symbolic portrayal of a fight over immigration policy’ and not a ‘targeted attack’

US Rep Paul Gosar has defended posting a controversial video clip on his congressional Twitter account depicting the Republican congressman in an anime attacking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Joe Biden.

He claims the video “depicts the fight taking place next week” inside the House of Representatives over the “soul of America” as lawmakers prepare to vote on the president’s domestic agenda.

The video – flagged by Twitter for violating the platform’s rules about hateful conduct – “was not meant to depict any harm or violence against anyone portrayed in the anime,” he said in a statement on Tuesday. “This video is truly a symbolic portrayal of a fight over immigration policy.”

Mr Gosar claims the bill will provide “amnesty for millions of illegal aliens already in our country.” The bill proposes work authorisation for millions of undocumented people who have lived in the US for more than a decade.

In the 90-second clip, the face of Ms Ocasio-Cortez is superimposed over a monster’s, while the anime versions of Mr Gosar and fellow far-right House lawmakers Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert deliver a fatal blow to the monster’s head as blood pours out.

Mr Gosar has repeatedly borrowed from the aesthetic palette and memes from extremist far-right internet message boards where he is often portrayed as a nationalist hero promoting Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda.

“This dude is a just a collection of wet toothpicks anyway,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez said in response to the clip, which has collected millions of views. “White supremacy is for extremely fragile people [and] sad men like him, whose self concept relies on the myth that he was born superior because deep down he knows he couldn’t open a pickle jar or read a whole book by himself.”

Earlier on Tuesday, he posted another meme defending the video clip.

The congressman, who incorrectly called his colleague “Congresswoman Cortez” three times in his statement, said her image in the edited clip from the anime Attack on Titan “represents the Democrats’ open border amnesty agenda included in the Build Back Better Plan.”

“Our country is suffering from the plague of illegal immigration,” he said. “The cartoon depicts the symbolic nature of a battle between lawful and unlawful policies and in no way intended to be a targeted attack ... It is a symbolic cartoon. It is not real life. Congressman Gosar cannot fly. The hero of the cartoon goes after the monster, the policy monster of open borders.”