Ocasio-Cortez challenges Trump to release college transcript

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Thursday responded to President Trump’s insult calling her a “poor student” by challenging the president to release his own college transcripts.

“Let’s make a deal, Mr. President: You release your college transcript, I’ll release mine, and we’ll see who was the better student,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.

The first-term lawmaker added that the “loser has to fund the Post Office,” a reference to demands from congressional Democrats to support the Postal Service amid a surge in mail-in voting.

Her comments came after Trump suggested that he was unwilling to make a deal with Democrats that included funding for the Postal Service because it would prevent universal mail-in voting during the election this year.

Let’s make a deal, Mr. President:

You release your college transcript, I’ll release mine, and we’ll see who was the better student.

Loser has to fund the Post Office. https://t.co/OXnmJxufIw

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 13, 2020

During the interview on Fox Business Network, Trump also lobbed a series of insults at Democrats, including Ocasio-Cortez, Democratic vice presidential pick Sen. Kamala Harris (Calif.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.).

“AOC was a poor student. I won’t say where she went to school, it doesn’t matter,” Trump said, referring to Ocasio-Cortez by her initials. “This is not even a smart person, other than she’s got a good line of stuff. I mean, she goes out and she yaps. These guys, they’re all afraid of her.” 

Ocasio-Cortez attended Boston University and graduated cum laude in 2011. She later worked as a bartender in New York before winning the Democratic primary in New York’s 14th District in 2018 to secure her path to election.

Trump has made similar attacks against former President Obama while he was in office, at one point pledging to make a $5 million donation to a charity if Obama released his college applications and transcripts. 

Trump’s former personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen said during a congressional testimony that he took legal measures to ensure the president’s academic records were not leaked.

Fordham University, where the president was a student from 1964 to 1966, later confirmed Cohen threatened legal action. Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 after transferring from Fordham.