Comedian sues AOC for Twitter block after he catcalled her outside U.S. Capitol

A political provocateur sued Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday for blocking him on Twitter after he heckled her outside the U.S. Capitol, shouting crude remarks about her body and her position on abortion.

Calling the Recent York Democrat his “favorite big booty Latina,” comedian Alex Stein yelled to the lawmaker that he loved her as she entered the constructing on July 13 in a video he posted online.

“She desires to kill babies but she’s still beautiful. You look very beautiful in that dress. You look very sexy. Have a look at that booty on AOC,” he catcalled to Ocasio-Cortez. “Look how sexy she looks in that dress. Oooh, I like it AOC. Hot, hot, hot like a tamale.”

Stein’s lawsuit cites a federal appeals court decision that ruled against then-President Donald Trump, saying he violated the constitutional rights of several people by blocking them from following him on Twitter.

The appeals court said Trump was acting in his official presidential capability when he blocked those people.

Just days after that ruling in November 2019, Ocasio-Cortez apologized to and settled a case with former Brooklyn assemblyman Dov Hikind, who sued her for blocking him on her @AOC Twitter account in response to critical replies to her tweets.

In that case, Ocasio-Cortez lifted the block on Hikind, and said he “has a First Amendment right to specific his views and mustn’t be blocked for them.”

Stein is searching for the identical response together with his suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

“I actually have no hard feelings for AOC,” Stein said, adding that is just not searching for monetary damages within the case.

“I actually would really like to have her unblock me,” he said, noting that may allow him to “communicate along with her.”

Ocasio-Cortez’s office, and lawyers who represented her within the prior Twitter block lawsuit didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment on Stein’s suit.

If the congresswoman fights the criticism, it could re-open the legal argument in regards to the rights of political figures to stop certain individuals or groups from following them on social media platforms.

In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court erased the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Trump had violated the First Amendment rights of the people he had blocked from his Twitter account while serving within the White House. The Supreme Court ordered the appeals court to dismiss the case as moot, because Trump by then was a personal citizen.

Stein’s case can also be different than other ones involving Trump and Ocasio-Cortez because his block was issued as a result of statements he made in person, not on an internet account.

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted out Stein’s video of the encounter that very same day, calling it a “deeply disgusting incident,” and that Stein was “clearly in search of extremist fame.”

“I used to be actually walking over to deck him because if nobody will protect us then I’ll do it myself,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “But I needed to catch a vote greater than a case today.”

Along with calling out Stein for his comments, Ocasio-Cortez also blocked him that day from her @AOC Twitter account, which has greater than 13 million followers, his suit says.

The suit says she blocked him “in retaliation to Mr. Stein’s exercise of his First Amendment right, because earlier that day Mr. Stein, within the context of political commentary and satire, complimented Ms. Cortez.”

“Mr. Stein has a constitutional right to access Ms. Cortez’s Twitter account as a part of vigorous public comment and criticism,” the suit says. “Ms. Cortez’s practice of blocking Twitter users she disagrees with is unconstitutional and this suit seeks to redress that mistaken.”

Stein’s lawyer, Jonathan Gross, in an interview, said that the reference to Ocasio-Cortez’s body “is a satire,” and the reference to her support for abortion rights “is clearly political.”

“My client is a political satirist,” Gross said. “Political speech, the Supreme Court has said, is the very best level of protected speech.”

But Gross said that no matter what Stein said, Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t have the legal right to dam him on Twitter.

In his interview with CNBC, Stein said, “I didn’t really need to disrespect her” together with his comments.

“It was essentially the most gracious way I could say it,” Stein said, claiming he was actually “complimenting her.”

Stein, who has a history of confronting other politicians, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-California, has gained a repute for being a “right-wing” comedian, but he objects to that label.

“Really I’m anti-establishment,” he said.

“I feel that we should always have socialized medicine,” Stein said, noting that was one left-wing concept that he agreed on with Ocasio-Cortez, whose district includes parts of Queens and The Bronx.

But Stein also said he was motivated to sue Ocasio-Cortez after recent news that the House Ethics Committee has prolonged its review of her appearance on the 2021 Met Gala where she’s accused of possible accepting an impermissible gift in the shape of a couture dress, handbag, shoes and jewellery in reference to the event.

“I feel ethically, AOC is sort of playing fast and loose,” Stein said.

He also admitted, “After all, I would like to get her attention.”

But he said he’s also appreciative of the congresswoman, and what the confrontation has done for his profession.

Inside two months of the incident, Stein was in talks with the conservative Glenn Beck’s network Blaze Media to host his own show.

That show, Prime Time with Alex Stein, launched in February.

While his videotaped confrontations with other politicians helped raise his profile to get him that gig, “None of them moved the needle closer than AOC,” Stein said.