Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Role at the time: U.S. Representative (D-NY)
Statement summary
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned Robert Kraft for organizing stadium owners to remove Macklemore from the tour, calling it censorship of speech about what she termed "the genocide in Gaza," and warned it could set a precedent for silencing any artist who speaks out.
“When you see what Robert Kraft did to line up all of the stadiums to censor speech in that one specific way, it's become clear that this is not just about one music artist or two music artists, but this is about how just a handful of stadium owners and the elite can prevent an entire massive issue, in this case, the genocide in Gaza.”
HuffPost report (republished on Yahoo) on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's September 15, 2026 comments condemning Robert Kraft's role in Macklemore's tour removal, embedding a video clip of her remarks posted by Acyn on X.
Why we used this label
Ocasio-Cortez condemns Robert Kraft for organizing stadium owners to remove Macklemore, framing it as censorship of speech about Gaza, and adopts Macklemore's own characterization of the conflict as genocide -- a defense of Macklemore's advocacy and a condemnation of his removal, consistent with other Democratic officials already in this case.