Katie Porter recalls heart-to-heart talk with AOC while hiding during the Capitol riot: ‘I just hope I get to be a mum’

Rep. Katie Porter recalled the Capitol insurrection during a recent interview on MSNBC, corroborating Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's recollection of the attack, including her fear that she would die and never get the chance to be a mother.  

Ms Porter recalled watching Ms Ocasio-Cortez tear through the office in a single-minded frenzied search.  

Despite the fact that Ms Ocasio-Cortez was "really usually unfailingly polite and very personable", according to Ms Porter, the congresswoman "wasn't really even talking" to her as she searched in the office.  

"She was opening up doors, and I was like: 'Can I help you? What are you looking for?'" Ms Porter said. "And she said 'I'm looking for where I'm going to hide.'"

Ms Ocasio-Cortez shared her memories of the day during on an Instagram video, where she said she was sincerely worried she might die.  

Ms Porter recalled having a "powerful" conversation with Ms Ocasio-Cortez, trying to draw on her experience as a mother to help reassure her colleague.  

"The two memories that really, especially as a mum, I'm calm, I've got everything here we need – we could live for like a month in this office," Ms Porter said. "And [Ms Ocasio-Cortez] said 'I just hope I get to be a mum – I hope I don't die today.'"

Ms Ocasio-Cortez ducked into Ms Porter's office as she could hear rioters in the halls yelling "where is she?"

Ms Porter recalled another conversation with Ms Ocasio-Cortez about the shoes they were wearing and how it might impact their chances of escaping the insurrectionists.  

"The second thing is she was wearing heels. I was wearing flats, and I remember her saying to me: 'I knew I shouldn't have worn heels. How am I going to run?'" Ms Porter said. "And we went and we found her a pair of sneakers to wear from one of my staffers so that she could run if she needed to literally run for her life."

In the weeks since the attack, Ms Ocasio-Cortez has called for the resignations of Republicans she believes helped precipitate the attack, including Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz.  

A large number of Republicans in Congress have called on Democrats to embrace "unity" and move past the attack on the Capitol.  

"These folks who tell us to move on, that it's not a big deal, that we should forget what's happened, or even telling us to apologise. These are the same tactics of abusers. And I'm a survivor of sexual assault," Ms Ocasio-Cortez said during her livestream.  

She said that demanding that participants in the riot be held accountable is not about scoring political points, but about acknowledging people's core, inalienable rights.  

"This is at a point where it's not just about a difference of political opinion," she said. "This is about just basic humanity."  

Shortly after the riot, Ms Ocasio-Cortez said during the insurrection, she refused to shelter with Republicans out of fear that they would assist the rioters and lead them to her and other Democratic colleagues.  

Since the attack, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert has been accused of providing rioters with reconnaissance tours of the US Capitol, and Democratic Rep. Cori Bush has moved her office away from that of Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Green, a QAnon-supporting conspiracy theorist who liked Facebook messages calling for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's execution and who tried to force Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib to swear in on Bibles despite the fact that both women are Muslim.  

“The accountability is not about revenge,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez said. “It’s about creating safety. And we are not safe with people who hold positions of power who are willing to endanger the lives of others if they think it will score them a political point.”