Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she'll 'run train on the progressive agenda,' sparking backlash from right-wing critics for using crude slang

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 2018

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined Justice Democrats on a call centered around a plan that would primary Democrats in 2020.

• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is facing some backlash for saying she plans to "run train on the progressive agenda," using a crude slang phrase with a vulgar sexual connotation.
• Ocasio-Cortez made the comment when addressing the heightened criticism she's faced from conservatives and right-wing media. 
• "Enjoy being exhausted for the next two years while we run train on the progressive agenda," she told her conservative critics in an interview with the Washington Post.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is facing some backlash for saying she plans to "run train on the progressive agenda," using a slang phrase with a vulgar sexual connotation.

The 29-year-old lawmaker made the comment in an interview with the Washington Post, in which she addressed the intense scrutiny and the many buffoonish attacks she's endured from conservatives and right-wing media.

The Bronx native said that after the Daily Caller, a conservative news site, published a fake nude photo of her, she doesn't think her critics can go any lower. And she added that she's happy to have her opponents spend their time attacking her while she champions her ambitious policy agenda. 

"The nude is supposed to be like the bazooka. You know, like, 'We're going to take her down.' Dude, you're all out of bullets, you're all out of bombs, you're all out of all this stuff. What have you got left?" she told the Post.

"I'm six days into the term, and you already used all your ammo. So enjoy being exhausted for the next two years while we run train on the progressive agenda," she went on. 

Read more: THE TRUTH ABOUT ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: The inside story of how, in just one year, Sandy the bartender became a lawmaker who triggers both parties

Twitter users quickly picked up on her use of the term "run train," which refers to a crude sexual act, according to Urban Dictionary. It's unclear whether the congresswoman was aware of the term's meaning. Ocasio-Cortez's spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Millennial conservative influencer Ben Shapiro called the apparent gaffe "hilariously terrible" and suggested that if Ocasio-Cortez was actually from the Bronx, she would have known the term's meaning.

Shapiro was playing into a false conspiracy on the right that the new congresswoman is not actually a working class Bronxite, as she's claimed to be, because she attended high school in Yorktown Heights, a mostly-affluent Westchester suburb.

Ocasio-Cortez has never hidden the fact that she went to high school in the suburbs - where her mother cleaned houses to support the family after her father died - and that the experience of moving from the Bronx to Yorktown Heights had a formative effect on her views on income inequality.

Others more sympathetic to Ocasio-Cortez joked that the phrase would be more fittingly used by President Trump. 

• Read more about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:
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• Here's the timeline of how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went from bartender to congresswoman in less than a year
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a plan to tax the wealthiest Americans 60% to 70%, and it highlights a detail about taxes most people get wrong