Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh blasted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Monday for attempting to walk-back her previous comments about the planet only having12 years left because of climate change.
“She claims that it was just dry humor and people don’t get it. She didn’t really mean it. Well, she did. She meant it to be taken seriously. She meant it to be received exactly as it was,” Limbaugh said on his radio show.
The freshman congresswoman Sunday, while responding to a tweet about taxing the rich, went after Republicans for mischaracterizing her “dry humor” and “sarcasm.” She also said her claim that the “world is ending in 12 years” was not meant to be taken literally.
“This is a technique of the GOP, to take dry humor + sarcasm literally and 'fact check” it,' the freshman Congresswoman tweeted. Like the ‘world ending in 12 years’ thing, you’d have to have the social intelligence of a sea sponge to think it’s literal. But the GOP is basically Dwight from The Office so who knows," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Sunday.
Dwight Schrute was a character portrayed by actor Rainn Wilson on the NBC sitcom “The Office." He was an eccentric foil who lacked understanding and made outlandish claims.
In January, Ocasio-Cortez was much more matter of fact when talking about climate change and the world ending in 12 years, a number taken from a 2018 U.N. study.
"Millennials and people, you know, Gen Z and all these folks that will come after us are looking up and we’re like: The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?" Ocasio-Cortez said.
Limbaugh took offense to Ocasio-Cortez for asserting that Republicans were the ones who misunderstood her and didn’t understand humor.
“So don’t tell me about people that don’t get humor. Don’t talk to me about people that don’t understand dry humor and sarcasm," Limbaugh said.
"We get it, AOC. When things are funny, we get it. But you wouldn’t know funny if it bit you on your pretty little nose.”