Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) gushed over Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff on Wednesday night applauding him as the very model of modern masculinity at a campaign event for his wife Kamala Harris.
“He’s not afraid to embody and pass on these values of security and this idea that you can, you can let your girl shine,” Ocasio-Cortez told a room full of students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, according to the Daily Mail.
“And he embodies that really well. We should all be really, really proud of him.” She told students the example Emhoff has set “has been incredibly important this presidential cycle.”
Ocasio-Cortez continued, “A lot of ideas of what being a man means putting a woman down or putting queer people down. And this idea that, like, in order to elevate one’s value, we need to diminish the people around us.”
Public praise of Emhoff as an example of secure masculinity came less than a week after a purported ex-girlfriend identified only as Jane came forward and said he slapped her at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival after believing she was flirty with a valet, as Breitbart News reported.
Emhoff has vehemently denied the accusations.
AOC echoes previous media backing for Emhoff with the Washington Post publishing an opinion piece in August calling him a “modern-day sex symbol,” “fantasy man,” and “ideal partner” despite reports he impregnated his children’s nanny while married to his ex-wife.
Catherine Rampell, a political columnist at the Post and CNN commentator, wrote, “Move over, Ryan Gosling. The modern female fantasy is embodied by the man who might soon become our first First Gentleman.”
Rampell argued Emhoff is “sexy” because he is “secure enough with his own masculinity to sometimes prioritize his wife’s ambitions over his own.”
As for the New York Democrat, she finished her public tribute with yet more praise.
“He’s able to stand beside the vice president’s side and lift her up instead of put her down,” AOC said, according to the Mail report.
“And he knows that by lifting of women, he’s also lifting up his fellow men around him. He’s not afraid to be a dad of a powerful daughter and a great son.”
