You could say that whenever Riley Gaines tried to make waves, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) hit her back with a cannonball dive.
Over the weekend, Gaines, a former U.S. NCAA swimmer turned MAGA influencer, sparked an online spat with the New York lawmaker and was left treading water — twice.
The kerfuffle began when Gaines shared a photo of Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani on X, and suggested in her caption that America was being “destroyed from within” by the trio.
Ocasio-Cortez blew her out of the water with the following response, “Maybe if you channeled all this anger into swimming faster you wouldn’t have come in fifth.”
The remark refers to a 200-yard swimming freestyle race in 2022, in which Gaines tied for fifth place with Lia Thomas, a trans athlete. Ever since tying with Thomas, Gaines has very loudly rallied against trans women’s participation in sports, making her a right-wing darling.
