"Among the “enemies of freedom” portrayed in a Memorial Day tribute video at a minor league baseball game: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, former Cuban president Fidel Castro and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
The video, shown between games of the Fresno Grizzlies’ doubleheader Monday, displayed President Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address on top of patriotic photos and images honoring veterans. A Fresno Bee reporter first pointed out the video on Twitter.
“As for the enemies of freedom, those who are potential adversaries, they will be reminded that peace is the highest aspiration of the American people," Reagan says as a photo of Ocasio-Cortez flashes across the screen between photos of dictators. "We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it. We will not surrender for it, now or ever.”
A spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described Democratic Socialist, declined to comment.
The Grizzlies, the Class AAA affiliate of the Washington Nationals, said in a statement posted on Twitter that they had not seen the full video before it aired. They apologized for not properly vetting it and for taking attention away from veterans.
“A pre-produced video from outside our front office was selected; unfortunately what was supposed to be a moving tribute ended with some misleading and offensive editing, which made a statement that was not our intent and certainly not our opinion,” the Grizzlies wrote of the video that played at Chukchansi Park in Fresno, Calif.
The Grizzlies staff member responsible for the video was “remorseful," team spokesman Paul Braverman told The Washington Post in an email. Braverman confirmed that the team would conduct an internal review to determine how the video bypassed internal controls meant to prevent this kind of incident.
Asked to comment, the Nationals referred to the Fresno club’s statement. The parent club shares no front-office connection with or control over the off-field actions of its affiliate.
Ocasio-Cortez, a high-profile freshman congresswoman, is a frequent target of conservatives’ ire. A Washington Examiner writer tweeted a photo of one of her outfits and commented that it “don’t look like a girl who struggles.” Fox News contributor Mike Huckabee suggested Ocasio-Cortez had been brainwashed by foreign agents to bring down the United States from the inside. And the Ohio Federation of College Republicans recently sent a fundraising email with a subject line calling Ocasio-Cortez “a domestic terrorist.”
“This puts me in danger every time,” the congresswoman wrote on Twitter in reference to the email. “Almost every time this uncalled for rhetoric gets blasted by conserv. grps, we get a spike in death threats to refer to Capitol Police.”
Ocasio-Cortez shown among dictators in Fresno Grizzlies' Memorial Day tribute video - The Washington Post
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