Trump baselessly claims Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will run against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and 'kick his ass'

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President Donald Trump argues about border security with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in the Oval Office

• President Donald Trump predicted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will challenge Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for his seat and would "kick his ass" in the race.
• Trump made the comments in a private lunch with members of the media on Tuesday which was supposed to focus on the president's State of the Union speech on Tuesday night.

• A spokesperson for Ocasio-Cortez declined to comment for this story and a spokesperson for Schumer didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

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President Donald Trump predicted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will challenge Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for his seat and would "kick his ass" in the race, Fox News host Bret Baier reported Tuesday.

Trump made the comment in a largely off-the-record annual lunch with television network anchors on Tuesday which was supposed to focus on the president's State of the Union speech on Tuesday night.

"As you can imagine, the conversation gets to the state of the Democratic party in the wake of Iowa," Baier, who attended the lunch, recounted on Fox. "[Trump] then put on the record that he thinks that Representative Alexnadria Ocasio-Cortez is going to run against Sen. Chuck Schumer, the minority leader in the Senate, and 'I think she is going to kick his ass,' that is the quote on the record."

Trump has repeatedly criticized and insulted Schumer and Ocasio-Cortez, both of whom hail from the president's home state and city. The president has called Ocasio-Cortez "dumb as a rock" and Schumer a "nasty man."

Ocasio-Cortez hasn't made any public indications that she's considering a run against Schumer, who has held his New York Senate seat for four terms and, prior to that, represented a Brooklyn-Queens congressional district for 18 years.

Ocasio-Cortez stunned the political world when she unseated veteran Rep. Joe Crowley in the 2018 primary in the Bronx and Queens.

A spokesperson for Ocasio-Cortez declined to comment for this story and a spokesperson for Schumer didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump excluded CNN from the Tuesday lunch, despite including two CNN anchors in last year's lunch.

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