Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Slammed For Boast: ‘Won’t You Look At That: Amazon Is Coming To NYC Anyway’
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez helped to stop a deal that would have lured retail giant Amazon to Long Island earlier this year, but after the progressive lawmaker boasted about the company coming to New York even without the deal, some critics are saying that she has gone too far.
According to The Hill, the Representative from New York was commenting on a story revealing that Amazon was going to open a location in Hudson Yards without getting any financial incentives from the state or city.
“Won’t you look at that: Amazon is coming to NYC anyway – *without* requiring the public to finance shady deals, helipad handouts for Jeff Bezos, & corporate giveaways,” she wrote. “Maybe the Trump admin should focus more on cutting public assistance to billionaires instead of poor families.”
Amazon signed a deal for a 335,000 space in Manhattan, bringing more than 1,500 jobs to the area. Many believed that the deal was dead after Ocasio-Cortez and others led a charge to prevent the city from dishing out billions in dollars and incentives to entice the company to land in the city. At the time, Amazon said that despite broad support from New Yorkers, they were abandoning their plans to establish a new location in the city. It also responded to her comments about the company, calling her attacks “just wrong.”
Me waiting on the haters to apologize after we were proven right on Amazon and saved the public billions https://t.co/AC64pG0nZI pic.twitter.com/xzCepkX4AV
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 6, 2019
After AOC’s boast, critics attacked the lawmaker, saying that the Amazon location would have fewer jobs than the original plan, and the new location is heading to Manhattan, not Long Island City, as originally thought. According to the New York Post, the director of the GOP consulting firm Targeted Victory, Caleb Hull, called Ocasio-Cortez out in a fiery tweet.
“You went from 25,000 Amazon jobs in your district to just 1,500 being offered OUTSIDE your district. You’re an idiot if you think this is a success for your constituents,” he wrote.
Another person pointed out that many store owners in Long Island City would have appreciated the new business that the company would have brought to the area, but instead, Manhattan will see an influx of new people.
Ocasio-Cortez clapped back at the comments, responding to a tweet from Daily Caller author Peter J. Hasson saying that Amazon was bringing only 6 percent of the original number of jobs it was promising.
“That 25k number was an unsubstantiated #, not a year 1 hiring figure [sic]. Nor was it a promise backed w/ consequences if it wasn’t met,” she said, adding that 1,500 jobs without incentives that may not have paid off, in the end, is a worthwhile trade.
