DREAM TEAMS

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Says She and Cardi B Will End the Government Shutdown

“Bronx girls are going to reopen the government.”

Jan. 18, 2019

Gary Gershoff/Getty Images

It’s day 28 of the longest government shutdown in United States history. It’s a national crisis brought about by Donald Trump which has only a couple things going for it: some thoroughly enjoyable memes, and, now, a newfound partnership between Cardi B and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who, at 29, is the youngest woman to ever serve in U.S. Congress.

The dream team came to be on Wednesday night, when Cardi B entered the political fray by reminding her nearly 40 million followers that the shutdown is still ongoing, after more than three weeks—and exactly how she feels about that. “This shit is crazy,” she said in an an impassioned video denouncing Trump’s move to order federal government workers to head back to work without pay. “Our country is a hell hole right now, all for a fucking wall,” she continued, explaining the situation so effectively that it wasn’t long before the hashtag #Cardi2020 started to trend.

That may seem like overkill, but it’s a true testament to Cardi’s eloquence that even Democratic politicians—New York state senator Chuck Schumer among them—considered sharing her message. Indeed, when MSNBC broadcast the video on Thursday, former New Jersey senator Robert Toricelli, who weathered no less than five government shutdowns while in office, responded: “Well, of course, I was going to say the exact same thing.”

The video ends with Cardi concluding: “Everybody needs to take this seriously. I feel like we gotta take some kind of action. I don’t know what kind of action, bitch, because this is not what I do, but bitch I’m scared.” It is, however, what Ocasio-Cortez does. And, as TMZ discovered on Thursday, she was also among those who contributed to the nearly 13 million views that the video has amassed in the 24 hours or so since. After sounding off on senator Mitch McConnell, Ocasio-Cortez said that she “absolutely” supports people like Cardi B speaking up about the matter and applauded her for doing so.

But she also went a bit further than that endorsement—unsurprisingly so, since she and Cardi B have been notably been vocal about the borough where they were both born for years now. Before the doors of the elevator she was then getting into closed, she added: “Bronx girls are going to reopen the government, okay?”

But that’s just one of the things that the pair has in common. They also both have an impressive audience—and very engaged ones at that. Even though, as Cardi pointed out, “a lot of y’all don’t care” about goings-on with the government, earlier this week, Ocasio-Cortez’s first speech from the House floor got enough views to break a C-SPAN record. (She also has 1.8 million Instagram followers, plus 2.4 million more on Twitter—no small feat for a previously unheard of freshman congresswoman who’s been in office for less than a month.)

There’s also the fact that both are experts at clapbacks, as Cardi already proved once again on Thursday night, posting MSNBC’s video of the former senator agreeing with her statements (after the anchors described Ocasio-Cortez as “demystifying the process for the American public”—something that plenty have also said about Cardi). “Soo many people under my comments talking about I shouldn’t talk politics ,I don’t know what I’m talking about , I’m dumb !,” she wrote in the caption. “Well I know alittle something something..I know 800,000 federal government workers won’t be getting paid till the shutdown is over and government assistants program are shutdown as well as in NO WELFARE , NO WIC,SECTION 8 .”

“I know it’s a little boring to watch the news but it won’t kill ya to visit some IG pages of people that talk about what’s going on in our community,” she continued, pointing to accounts like @tamikadmallory and @shaunking. “This can go on for months and it will affect our homes and country,” she added, concluding, “PAY ATTENTION !!!” Well, Ocasio-Cortez certainly is.