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Riley Gaines responded Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., on the latest edition of her OutKick podcast, “Gaines for Girls,” following their recent social media feud.
The two went back and forth in a dispute that arose when AOC said that if Gaines had put “all this anger into swimming faster [she] would not have placed fifth” at the 2022 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships.
Gaines mentioned that she is in “about 2%” of people who competed in Division I track and field and that “there are only eight women… who make it to the finals and are All-Americans in their event.” The person she tied with was Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer who won the national title in the 400-meter freestyle the day before.
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Riley Gaines and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., clashed on social media on Oct. 27, 2025. (IMAGE/Getty Images)
“If you think fifth place is bad, what do you think of 462? Because that’s what Will Thomas placed among the men just 12 months earlier,” Gaines responded, calling Thomas by the former UPenn swimmer’s birth name.
“This comment is so sarcastic. It’s basically the same tired idea we’ve heard from the Democratic Party and those who support men stealing our opportunities and our spots on the podium over and over again, that women aren’t allowed to get angry when they screw us over, and if we are, then there’s something wrong with us as women, as athletes,” Gaines continued. “And also, this notion that women lose to men in sports because we just don’t try hard enough, because we’re lazy, maybe we should have swam faster, it’s dismissive, it’s condescending, and it’s honestly sexist… They would only feel comfortable and confident and secure saying that to a woman.”
“For the life of me, I cannot understand this line of attack.”
University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas and Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines react after finishing tied for fifth in the 200 freestyle finals at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships on March 18, 2022, at the McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta, Georgia. (Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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Gaines later said the New York congresswoman was “hell-bent on being on the wrong side of every issue 80-20.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s about the border, crime, child castration, parental rights or men in women’s sports,” Gaines said.
After Gaines challenged AOC to a debate on “The Ingraham Angle,” the congresswoman “challenged” Gaines to “get a real job.” Gaines said she has one: being a mother to a new daughter.
Riley Gaines has stood up for fairness in women’s sports. (XX-XY Athletics)
“If AOC had a little girl, she’d probably feel a little differently about a grown man exposing himself to her daughter. But on the other hand, she’s proven to be a self-absorbed, misogynistic socialist, so probably not,” Gaines said.
