LET’S MAKE A DEAL
Ocasio on the march
President Trump promised to reopen the government and postpone deporting 1 million immigrants if Dems give him what he wants: a southern border barrier, more border agents and immigration judges. But Dem leaders including Nancy Pelosi called his offer a “nonstarter” before he ever uttered a word.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and First Lady Chirlane McCray had starring roles in a controversial Women’s March in lower Manhattan Saturday, speaking to thousands of assembled protesters despite lingering accusations of antiSemitism against some of the organizers.
The Women’s March NYC rally in Foley Square was organized by a chapter of Women’s March Inc., the national group behind 2017’s massive protests against President Trump.
The parent group came under fire this year over the allegedly anti-Jewish views of its copresidents — Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour and gun-control activist Tamika Mallory, who has praised Louis Farrakhan, the anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam.
Women’s March Inc. has since publicly renounced anti-Semitism, but not before a splinter group broke off.
That group, the Women’s March Alliance, rallied thousands more demonstrators on Saturday in a competing march down Sixth Avenue from Columbus Circle.
“I’m at this particular march because of the lack of community the other one shows,” Midtown march attendee Katie Reidy, 33, of Westchester County, told The Post.
Neither McCray nor Ocasio-Cortez, who has claimed Jewish ancestry, mentioned the splintering of the city’s marches, or the underlying controversy, in their speeches.
Ocasio-Cortez also attended the Women’s March Alliance event, where she told CNN that both demonstrations had the same message.
Event security barred a Post reporter from speaking with either Ocasio-Cortez or McCray.
About a half-dozen counterprotesters at the Foley Square march stood across the street and screamed, “Jew haters,” and held signs reading, “The Farrakhan March.”
Keynote speaker and filmmaker Agunda Okeyo was interrupted when right-wing activist Laura Loomer, who is Jewish, crashed the stage and tried to commandeer the mic, shouting, “What about the Jews?”
“The Women’s March hates Jews!” she shouted repeatedly.