Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez touted First Gentleman Doug Emhoff as the ideal representation of masculinity at a Las Vegas campaign event for his wife Kamala Harris on Wednesday.
“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 (D-NY) 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.”
The “squad” member praised Emhoff’s example of masculinity 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 the valet.
Emhoff has vehemently denied the accusations.
“Any suggestion that he would or has ever hit a woman is false,” a spokesperson for the second gentleman told Semafor.
Ocasio-Cortez did not address the allegation, but instead, she praised Emhoff for lifting up Harris.
“He’s able to stand beside the vice president’s side and lift her up instead of put her down,” she said, according to the outlet. “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.”
The congresswoman, who represents parts of Queens and the Bronx, also noted that this election cycle has shown all kinds of “poor examples” of masculinity and “a lot of misogyny,” the Mail reported.
“A lot of ideas of what being a man means putting a woman down or putting queer people down,” she reportedly said.
“And this idea that, like, in order to elevate one’s value, we need to diminish the people around you.”
“But Doug really is the contrast — the second gentleman is a real contrast to that,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
