AOC says she gets death threats after organizations air 'hateful messages' about her

WASHINGTON — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., explained on Twitter Tuesday evening that she gets death threats because of "hateful messages" aired by groups like Fox News and other outlets. 

Her comments follow a minor league baseball team's apology for showing a video during a Memorial Day game that juxtaposed an image of the freshman congresswoman alongside images of Kim Jong Un and Fidel Castro.  

"I‘ve had mornings where I wake up & the 1st thing I do w/ my coffee is review photos of the men (it’s always men) who want to kill me," she wrote. 

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She singled out Fox News in particular, writing that "whenever Fox gets particularly aggressive + hateful," the death threats to her office increase, meaning that the interns answering the phones had to "constantly hear hateful messages." 

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Ocasio-Cortez has emerged as a lightning rod among Democratic politicians because of her large social media presence and outspoken positions on issues like the Green New Deal.

Quartz reported that arrests for death threats against American politicians significantly increased in 2018. According to an analysis for the outlet performed by Athena Chapekis and Lauren Donahoe of the Prosecution Project: "75% of those charged for making threats against U.S. politicians come from the ideological right, based on cases going back to 1990. They are almost entirely U.S. citizens, male, and roughly 85% white." 

Contributing: Tom Schad