CNN hosts Chris Cuomo, Don Lemon defend AOC's Capitol riot claim, bash critics of her account

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AOC's story of Capitol riot experience questioned by GOP lawmakers

FOX News contributor Miranda Devine and OutKick founder Clay Travis weigh in on 'Fox News @ Night.'

Liberal CNN hosts Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo passionately defended Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday night, bashing critics of her emotional account of what the New York Democrat claimed she experienced on Jan. 6 during the tragic Capitol riot.

Ocasio-Cortez this week told her Instagram followers that she thought she was going to die after hearing banging outside her office door – but she later found out it was a police officer banging on the door.

 Liberal CNN hosts Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon passionately defended Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday night.

Many critics have also pointed out that Ocasio-Cortez wasn't inside the main Capitol building when the rioters stormed. As a result, some have accused the leader of the "Squad" of progressive Democrats of either exaggerating or fabricating her claim.

CNN hosts Lemon and Cuomo, who regularly go off-script during their nightly handoff, vehemently sided with Ocasio-Cortez.

FACT-CHECK SITE SNOPES PANNED FOR 'WEIRD' POST ABOUT AOC'S CAPITOL CLAIM

"I don’t understand how this is a story. How is she supposed to know who was on the other side of the door? How is she supposed to know how many people were on the other side of the door? This has nothing to do with anything AOC or whatever, but I kept trying to figure out how the people that were actually involved in that siege, and all the chaos, could be criticizing someone else who was involved in it," Lemon said.

"She was explaining how, what she thought was going on in her particular situation."

Lemon called criticism "flat-out partisanship and a distraction to Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has dominated CNN’s coverage as the network seeks a new villain with President Trump out of office.

"They’re going after one of the Democrats because the Democrats are going after one of theirs," Cuomo added, claiming conservatives want to "frame the Democrats" for the tragic Capitol riot.

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"It’s all B.S.," Cuomo said, noting that he has been in a similar situation to Ocasio-Cortez. 

"I lived a situation like that and it doesn’t have to be real, the threat, for you to believe it’s imminent," Cuomo said as Lemon added, "It’s what you believe."

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., has pushed back on Ocasio-Cortez's account of what happened inside the Cannon House Office Building.

"My office is two doors down from AOC. Not at one moment during the events of Jan. 6 did any rioter or any insurrectionist come down the hallways where our offices are located," she said Thursday on "America Reports."

Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.