{"id":3264,"date":"2025-11-01T16:21:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T16:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/?p=3264"},"modified":"2025-11-01T16:21:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T16:21:17","slug":"riley-gaines-strikes-back-at-aoc-with-savage-jab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/?p=3264","title":{"rendered":"Riley Gaines Strikes Back At AOC With Savage Jab"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Former NCAA swimmer and women\u2019s sports advocate Riley Gaines fired back at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) this week after the progressive lawmaker mocked her athletic career, escalating a fiery back-and-forth that began over Gaines\u2019 criticism of the Democratic Party\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The clash started when Gaines posted a photo of Ocasio-Cortez appearing at a rally alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, captioning it, \u201cWe\u2019re being destroyed from within.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ocasio-Cortez responded on X with a sneering jab at Gaines\u2019 athletic record: \u201cMaybe if you channeled all this anger into swimming faster you wouldn\u2019t have come in fifth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Maybe if you channeled all this anger into swimming faster you wouldn\u2019t have come in fifth. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gkiEyZ8JGX\">https:\/\/t.co\/gkiEyZ8JGX<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AOC\/status\/1982882637376303280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 27, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The congresswoman\u2019s insult referenced Gaines\u2019 performance in the 2022 NCAA women\u2019s championships, where she tied for fifth place with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas. Thomas, who previously competed in the men\u2019s division, ranked 462nd before transitioning and went on to win the 500-yard freestyle title\u2014an event that created national debate over fairness in women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gaines, who has since become a leading voice opposing biological males competing in women\u2019s athletics, wasted no time hitting back. \u201cIt\u2019s always hilarious when they think they\u2019ve landed a \u2018gotcha\u2019 by pointing out I was the 5th-fastest woman in the nation, yet they conveniently forget the mediocre man who ranked 462nd in the men\u2019s division lol,\u201d Gaines wrote. She then added, \u201cMisogynistic dunce.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The exchange didn\u2019t stop there. During an appearance on Fox News\u2019s The Ingraham Angle, Gaines issued an open challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI want to honestly challenge AOC to a debate,\u201d Gaines said. \u201cShe can defend socialism. I will defend capitalism. She can defend removing God. I will defend embracing a biblical worldview. She can defend child sacrifice. I will defend the sanctity of life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAny of the radical and sane democratic policies and platform that they stand for, I will debate the opposite. I\u2019m challenging AOC to it here,\u201d Gaines added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ocasio-Cortez, rather than accepting, doubled down with another insult, replying, \u201cAnd I would like to challenge this person to get a real job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gaines delivered one more sharp counterpunch on X, writing, \u201cThis is comical given it\u2019s coming from someone whose own party shut down the government and left you technically\u2026 jobless.\u201d She added, \u201cI guess I\u2019ll take that as a no (which is to be expected when your positions are indefensible on virtually every issue).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gaines, who hosts OutKick\u2019s Gaines for Girls podcast, has turned her post-swimming career into a prominent platform for defending women\u2019s sports. Her unapologetic tone and ability to go toe-to-toe with high-profile progressives like Ocasio-Cortez have made her a favorite online. The fiery exchange has since garnered millions of views on social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former NCAA swimmer and women\u2019s sports advocate Riley Gaines fired back at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) this week<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3266,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3264\/revisions\/3266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}