New York Congresswoman and environmentalist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took heat on Twitter after she mocked Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, for tweeting that he would never give up his gas stove on Monday.
The exchange went viral, with Ocasio-Cortez’s post racking up more than 73,000 likes on Twitter.
“Did you know that ongoing exposure to NO2 from gas stoves is linked to reduced cognitive performance?” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in response to a tweet from Jackson.
Jackson vowed that he would rather die than give up his gas stove. “I’ll NEVER give up my gas stove. If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands. COME AND TAKE IT!!”
The commissioner for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission told Bloomberg News that the agency is considering a ban on gas stoves, reportedly out of concern for the environment and people’s personal health.
Actors, politicians and conservative activists made fun of Ocasio-Cortez for the exchange, asking the congresswoman how many gas stoves she owned and joking that her proposal was a direct attack on chefs like Gordon Ramsay.
But Ocasio-Cortez argued that the “proposal” to ban gas stoves was a perfectly reasonable one. “The way we are handling it in NYC isn’t to force people to switch what they already have. Folks can keep their appliances, and new buildings in NYC will have gas-free stoves. As for federally, any proposal from the CPSC would go through a quite lengthy review and input process.”
“Dems are literally insane,” actor Nicholas Tutora wrote.
He also joked that the gas stove was one of many inventions that will be banned by the Biden administration: “Dems will be banning the wheel next.”
“Is this an attack on @GordonRamsey,” Republican Congressional candidate Max Avery tweeted.
“How many [gas stoves] do you have?” actor Matthew Marsden asked.