During an interview with George “Tyrus” Murdoch, a former professional wrestler who is now a contributor on Fox News and podcast host for OutKick, Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary tore into Rep. AOC, saying that her district is a mess and that he wouldn’t even trust her to manage a candy store. That interview took place in early April 2024 and was on Tyrus’ “Maintaining with Tyrus” podcast.
During the interview, O’Leary, a successful entrepreneur and investor, argued that AOC might be a “successful politician,” but is an absolutely terrible manager. As evidence of that, he pointed to her district, which is a mess that is overrun, in parts, with prostitution and streetside vendors that make it reminiscent of a poor area in a developing nation rather than an area in New York City.
Making that point, O’Leary said, “I look at AOC, what an incredible, incredibly successful politician she is and what a horrific manager she is. Her jurisdiction looks like a third world country, and yet she’s great at social media and making outrageous statements and getting $5 at a time on, you know, every way she can on social.”
Continuing, O’Leary referenced the incident in which Rep. AOC and other hyper-progressive politicians went on the attack when it was rumored that Amazon could be putting its second headquarters in New York City, with the backlash over potential tax breaks leading to Amazon putting the “HQ2” building in the Northern Virginia area instead. O’Leary, referencing that, said, “Good for her. But wow, look what she did when Amazon came knocking for 10,000 jobs.”
Rep. AOC, commenting on the incident at the time it occurred in 2019, said on Twitter, “Today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers and their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation and the power of the richest man in the world.” The building, which Gov. Cuomo said could have employed 25,000 people, would have been built in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, near AOC’s district.
In any case, O’Leary continued his attack on AOC and others like her, saying, after referencing the Amazon debacle, “Not that she isn’t just great as a politician. There are countries that have weak leaders. There are states that have bad governors. I think people the great thing about democracy is say we can do better right up my head, let’s do better.”
O’Leary also said, when Tyrus asked him if her political acumen would, theoretically, lead him to invest in her, that she’s not even of the quality to “manage a candy store.” He said, “Let me be specific, I wouldn’t hire her to manage a candy store.”
Watch him here:
O’Leary commented on AOC making NYC a bad place to do business in 2023 as well. Then, during an appearance on CNN, he said, “I don’t put companies here in New York anymore or Massachusetts or in New Jersey or in California. Those states are uninvestable. The policy here is insane. The taxes are too high. We put them in Fargo, North Dakota.”
He continued, “The regulatory environment is punitive. I had a project in upstate New York behind the grid in Niagara Falls for electricity, a global data center we were building. Eventually it got so bad with the politicians in the local region and the state policy, we moved it to Norway and all the jobs. Norway has it now. Thousands of jobs coming out of that. That’s New York. Uninvestable. Sorry. Don’t shoot the messenger.” And, adding that AOC is at least partially to blame, he said, also in reference to the Amazon debacle, “And AOC, she’s great at killing jobs. She kills jobs by the thousands.”
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