Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) mocked White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, calling him a “clown” and encouraging her followers to “laugh” at what she described as the “insecure masculinity” of men in the Trump administration.
“The point is that they are scraping and grasping at straws because they have nothing else,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Laugh at them. Stephen Miller is a clown! I’ve never seen that guy in real life, but he looks like he’s, like, [4 feet, 10 inches tall]. He looks like he is angry about the fact that he’s [4 feet, 10 inches] and he’s taken that anger out on any other population possible. Like, laugh at them.”
She continued, “One of the most powerful cultural things you can do to a political movement that’s predicated on the puffery of insecure masculinity — that’s what this is about — is to make fun of them. One of the best ways to dismantle a movement of insecure men is by making fun of them.”
Ocasio-Cortez, who frequently uses livestreams to mix political commentary with personal interaction, said humor is more effective than outrage when confronting what she sees as extremism.
“When you laugh at people who think cruelty is strength, you rob them of their power,” she said.
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Several GOP figures have claimed that AOC’s growing influence in Democratic politics has pushed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to dig in against the Trump administration. Ocasio-Cortez dismissed those accusations as “ridiculous” and “desperate.”
“It is so important to understand that these people are all talk,” she said of Republicans. “They make up conspiracies to distract from the fact that they have nothing to offer working people.”
Miller, one of the architects of Trump’s immigration and border policies, responded earlier in the day to unrelated criticism from Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who accused “MAGA-world” of being behind the doxing of a South Carolina judge whose home was later burned down.
“You are vile. Deeply warped and vile,” Miller said of Goldman during an interview with Fox News. “While the Trump Administration has launched the first-ever government-wide effort to combat and prosecute illegal doxing, sinister threats, and political violence, you continue to push despicable lies, demented smears, and foment unrest.”
Officials in South Carolina are still investigating the cause of the blaze, which drew national attention after activists on social media allegedly circulated the judge’s home address.
Miller has been a frequent target of criticism from Democrats since returning to the White House in Trump’s second term, overseeing immigration and domestic policy coordination. He has described the administration’s renewed enforcement actions as “restoring law and order” after what he called “four years of deliberate border sabotage under Biden.”
Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, has positioned herself as one of the leading left-wing voices opposing Trump’s immigration policies and denouncing what she calls “state-sponsored cruelty.” She has accused the White House of “terrorizing families” through mass deportations and ICE operations, and has called for the abolition of the agency altogether.
Her Sunday remarks drew sharp backlash from conservatives who accused her of mocking personal appearance and resorting to bullying. Republican strategist Matt Whitlock wrote on X, “Imagine the reaction if a Republican made comments like this about a female Democrat. The hypocrisy is unreal.”
Ocasio-Cortez brushed off the criticism, writing later that laughter “isn’t cruelty — it’s confidence.”
“When people use hate to mask insecurity, they expect you to be afraid of them,” she said. “Laughing shows you aren’t.”
