Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) on Tuesday said members of the media have taken pains to hide Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D., N.Y.) retraction of a 7-page FAQ explaining the contents of her Green New Deal.
"Too many people in the media have been complicit in the Stalin-like or '1984' technique of disappearing it, sending it down the memory hole," Cotton said on the Hugh Hewitt Show. "But this is where their heart lies. They believe that Americans driving around in trucks on farms, or commuting from the suburbs where they can have a decent home into the city to work are a fundamental threat to the world, and they have to have the power and the control of those Americans’ lives to implement their radical vision for humanity."
Cotton also criticized 2020 Democratic candidates for supporting the deal.
"It’s pretty remarkable that when these Democrats put out the Green New Deal last week, that you had many Democrats running for president leap onto a proposal that was going to confiscate every privately owned vehicle in America within a decade and ban air travel so we could all drive or ride around on high speed light rail, supposedly powered by unicorn tears," he said.
Other Green New Deal provisions include promises to replace or upgrade every building America with green energy alternatives and to provide economic security to people "unwilling to work." After the proposal received criticism from both Republicans and Democrats, Ocasio-Cortez's office distanced itself from the FAQ.
During a Friday appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight, Robert Hockett, a Cornell law professor and adviser to Ocasio-Cortez, said the document was unconnected to Ocasio-Cortez.
"We never would and AOC has never said anything like that," Hockett said. "I think you're referring to some sort of document, some sort of doctored document that someone else has been circulating."
Ocasio-Cortez's office deleted the FAQ, claiming it was released too early in an unfinished version by mistake.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) announced on Tuesday that he will all the Senate to vote on the proposal so senators can "go on record and see how they feel about the Green New Deal." Sen. Ed Markey complained about voting on the Green New Deal resolution, which he co-sponsored with Ocasio-Cortez, because he believes McConnell is trying to "sabotage the movement."