Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees: Interview With Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)

Interview

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Of course. Thank you for having me.

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Absolutely. You know, I think this was about revenge. This was about petty politics. But also, I think it's also important to state that this was not just about Republicans trying to feed a base that they have already primed for years under Donald Trump with racism, misogyny, xenophobia, Islamophobia, but also it represents a stripping of an important perspective on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, that Ilhan Omar as a refugee, as an immigrant, as the only Hijabi woman in the United States Congress presents, and that perspective is critical in terms of American foreign policy.

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Well, you know, I think when we look at all three of these, first of all, when you look at Swalwell and Schiff, they're targeting and the Republican Party's targeting of all three of them have always been about campaigning, and it has always been about the perspectives that they bring.

It is about political revenge in the case of all three of them. Political revenge for Adam Schiff for his work on the impeachment of Donald Trump, political revenge with Eric Swalwell in the incisive -- his incisive ability to communicate against the Trump administration and the wrongdoings of the Republican Party, and in the case of Ilhan Omar, I believe that that hers is absolutely especially amplified with racist target because this is what set her base, this is the same Representative that Donald Trump held rallies around saying send her back to "her country."

Her country is the United States of America. She's an American.

And so you know, in the case of all three of these expulsions, there is either political revenge or there is the absolute agenda of racist, misogynist, and xenophobic targeting and those three -- those are -- those three points, in addition to the political revenge constitute modern Trumpian politics, pettiness, revenge scorekeeping, and the use the race and the baiting of identity in order to divide people up.

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I think Speaker McCarthy gets a fundraising boon. I think he gets potentially currying favor with either Trump and his base saying, I delivered on these promises. I'm a good soldier to the Trumpian political base. I am really letting the world know that the House Republican Party is now being fully transformed. We are cementing the transformation.

Even with Donald Trump being gone, they are cementing the transformation of the Republican Party into a Trumpian party, one that settles petty political scores that is no longer motivated by classic "conservative politics" of reducing a tax base, et cetera, but that this is truly just about service to their benefactors.

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No, no. There was never an apology. But I think what a lot of people sometimes fail to understand is that when a workplace has been made unsafe for a person, it is then up to that individual to try to survive on their own.

This is not an institution that protects. It is not a party that protects people that they disagree with. But that being said, when it comes to those remarks with Representative Gosar, one of the things that I told him was, I can't stand what you did, and I can't stand what you stand for. But I don't think that you should support Kevin McCarthy for Speaker either. And, you know, that's one thing on one day that I think both of us were in alignment on.

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I think it's uncomfortable serving with people who engage in what many experts deem stochastic terrorism, which is the incitement of violence in a -- which is an incitement of violence using digital means and large platforms. So that individual themselves may not be the one that's wielding a weapon.

But I have had to ride as has Representative Omar, I have consistently had to ride in 20,000-pound armored vehicles, you know, engaging in some of the most gruesome threats that you can imagine that were incited by Republican members.

This is not just about a tweet, it is about what life looks like, and the marshaling of hundreds, thousands if not millions of people into doing something and Donald Trump knows that very well. And he uses and used his rallies very strategically, in order to engage in political intimidation of what he deemed his political enemies.

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I mean, we may see. He will either be the nominee or he will burn down anyone who isn't him who is the nominee.

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Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, there has never been an apology. And by the way, that is something that highly distinguishes these situations.

These individuals that Kevin McCarthy has appointed, chosen to appoint to committee, George Santos claimed that his grandparents were in the Holocaust. That was a lie, a disgusting lie.

Marjorie Taylor Greene regularly trafficking in antisemitic conspiracy theories. Paul Gosar inciting -- these are individuals, Marjorie Taylor Greene included -- inciting violence against specific members in the body. He has appointed all three of them to House Committees not just one, but multiple.

Marjorie Taylor Greene who was engaging in 9/11 conspiracy theories, Kevin McCarthy appointed her to the Homeland Security Committee.

So there is really no consistency here. And it needs to be very well known that this targeting of Ilhan Omar is because the Republican base finds it easy. The Republican base finds it politically self- rewarding. And I also believe that the Republican base seeks to remove a perspective that challenges a certain foreign policy establishment in this country.

She advocates against just pivoting toward the defaulting to use of violent means in American foreign policy, and she really pushes this country to engage in diplomatic means, and to center the needs of refugees and survivors and the casualties of war.

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I don't think he does. First of all, when he says that Gosar and all these folks removed from their Committees, Republicans did not do that. In fact, they appointed them to Committees.

Paul Gosar is on House Oversight, and I believe Natural Resources, the same two committees that I serve on, by the way, very selectively put this individual on the exact two Committees that I have been appointed in.

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I do not know I cannot -- I cannot speak into Kevin McCarthy's mind, but it certainly should have been a consideration as Speaker of the House that he should have taken into account.

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Absolutely. But beyond that, he also appointed Marjorie Taylor Greene to Oversight and Homeland Security. So this idea that they did it to one and the other is -- you know, I think is something that can be dispensed with.

But when it comes to Representative Omar's role on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, she has modeled what coming together with a community looks like, what apology looks like.

One of the leaders of the large group of Jewish Members in Congress stood up in her -- several Jewish Members of Congress, Jan Schakowsky, Dean Phillips stood up in defense saying she has engaged in a process of reconciliation with us. This is a model of what this kind of -- what this kind of incident should look like.

They were begging Kevin McCarthy, as Jewish Members of Congress, if you listen to what Jan Schakowsky was saying, you do not speak for me, you cannot do this on my behalf. And yet, he still railroaded this, which is really what gives the whole game away.

In fact, Representative Miller who brought forth the resolution in discussing it today really gave the whole game away when he started to equate a position that Amnesty International, certain bodies within the UN, even Israeli Human Rights organizations have been sounding the alarm that the Human Rights crisis in the West Bank and the Palestinian space is constituting apartheid, and he equated that position, that global human rights organizations have already raised as antisemitic and that right there is the slippery slope that we really need to be paying attention to.

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I mean, Kevin McCarthy took a week -- took about a week to become selected Speaker of the House something, that is typically a ceremonial formality because all of that brawling happens in the months between November and January. So he took a week to become Speaker. They have taken almost an entire month to even organize their Committees.

We just had our first Oversight Committee hearing yesterday. You know, serving on Oversight under the great Elijah Cummings. You know, one of the things that he told us is a congressional term is two years, but you really have the first six months to be effective, because you go out in August, and when you come back, Members of Congress already have primary elections coming up. So you have that first six months to really legislate and get your agenda rolling.

Kevin McCarthy has already burned through month one doing nothing, no Committees formally organized. He burned a week becoming Speaker of the House. These first six months, he cannot afford to lose that kind of time.

So now, he is down to five months, and what we're seeing next week on the docket for, you know, Oversight Committee, for example, they're spending a week doing a hearing on Twitter. So I do not anticipate this Republican majority being able to do much or be effective beyond engaging in political stunts, and that is to the detriment of Americans, both Republican and Democrat, as well as Independents because things are not going to be getting done in the way that they need to be under his leadership.

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Of course. Thank you so much, John.

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