Full Interview: AOC Speaks on the Trump Government Shutdown — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

[0:00] In just a few hours at midnight, the federal government is expected to shut down. [0:04] It will be the first government shut down since the last time Donald Trump was president. [0:08] A new poll by NPR, PBS, and Marist shows that if the government does shut down tonight, [0:11] which we fully expect, Americans would blame Republicans more than Democrats, [0:15] with 38% of respondents blaming Republicans, 27% blaming Democrats, and 31% blaming both parties. [0:22] Meanwhile, the president today said from the Oval Office that Democrats are to blame, [0:25] warned that he would use a shutdown to his political advantage. [0:28] A lot of good can come down from shutdowns. [0:32] We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn't want, and they'd be Democrat things. [0:37] Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat in New York. [0:40] She's executive board member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and she joins me now. [0:44] Congresswoman, it does look like we are headed towards a shutdown. [0:48] What do you see as the Democratic strategy and message here for a government funding bill? [0:56] I mean, Chris, we're here to help people. [0:58] We are here in the midst of this destruction of the federal government, the federal safety net, [1:04] a trillion dollars eviscerated from people's health care, their Medicare, their Medicaid in [1:11] this country with prices that are skyrocketing and life becoming completely untenable for the [1:17] American people. [1:18] We are here to try to be a backstop and to be that backstop, which is what the American people [1:23] have elected us to do. [1:26] So right now, there's this sort of back and forth about the ACA tax credits, and there's [1:30] kind of a strange dynamic that I want to get your sense of, right? [1:33] Because at one level, negotiating over the ACA tax credits is important. [1:37] I mean, there are people who are going to see their premiums go up 15, 20 percent, like huge [1:41] amounts are going to spike. [1:42] Republicans don't like these extenders. [1:45] Democrats do. [1:46] They think it's good for people. [1:46] But that's fully in the lane of like normal politics. [1:50] And then at the same time, like the president of the United States assembled 800 military [1:53] commanders to say, I want you, you're going to have to go to war against your fellow citizens [1:57] in American cities. [1:58] And I think people are having a little bit of a hard time of like, we're going to have [2:02] a fight on the shutdown about the tax credits, but not about the president wants to declare [2:07] war on Americans, even though I understand those two are conceptually distinct. [2:10] Do you see what I'm saying? [2:11] I see what you're saying, Chris. [2:13] But, you know, I think that's something for us to really set the record straight here [2:17] on. [2:18] This is not a fight over tax credits. [2:22] This is a fight over your ability to go to a pharmacy and afford your insulin. [2:27] We're not talking about just 15 or 20 percent increases in people's premiums. [2:32] Tomorrow, health care companies and today, health care companies are finalizing the premiums [2:39] that everyday Americans are going to be paying. [2:42] And we are talking about a doubling of monthly health care premiums, not even including your [2:48] deductible, in terms of what people are going to be paying next year because of a trillion [2:53] dollars in Medicaid cuts that were put together earlier this year. [2:58] And I don't know about anybody else, but I do not think that this is just about a tax break [3:04] or a small tax extender. [3:05] This is about fighting, not just on tax breaks, community health centers and ensuring that [3:12] we have a stability of the American health care system. [3:15] And when Republicans use a legislative mechanism to gut the American health care system, we [3:21] have to use a legislative mechanism in order to restore it and to fight for it. [3:27] Because at the end of the day, you know, people may talk about tax credits this and tax credits [3:32] that what they do understand is when you have insulin and you can't afford it. [3:37] What they do understand is when your kid has chemotherapy or your spouse gets diagnosed [3:42] with cancer and you go into a hospital and it doesn't get covered and you have to choose [3:47] life and death what this is about. [3:50] Now, that does not mean that we ignore the abhorrent violation of law and norms and what is happening [3:58] with our U.S. cities, but we have a broad spectrum of ways and places that we can fight, including [4:04] our governors, our attorney generals and our state and municipal leaders, as you just saw. [4:09] So I just want to make sure I understand this just from your perspective here. [4:13] So and I think this is generally the view of congressional leadership as well. [4:17] You can correct me if I'm wrong. [4:18] If there was bipartisan compromise, right, if everyone came together, the leaders of the [4:24] parties, the president said, yes, these five things, we're going to make sure that [4:27] these premium supports keep going, we're going to fund community health centers, whatever [4:30] the sort of asks on appropriation around people's affordable health care. [4:35] If those were met, Democrats would be a yes. [4:39] Like that is the box that this is happening in, as opposed to we can't fund a Department [4:44] of Justice that prosecutes political enemies or whatever else might be out there. [4:48] Well, let me tell you, Chris, the mechanism by which that deal is locked is not just about [4:55] agreeing in concept on tax credits. [4:58] We need to do it with no tricks, no games and no back doors, which includes rescissions. [5:04] And when we talk about rescissions, that is the mechanism that the federal government is [5:10] using to gut and destroy rule of law across the board. [5:14] So we are fighting to ensure that health care is protected for every American. [5:19] But the way that we do that also means that the only way that you guarantee that is by [5:26] forcing them to adhere to the rule of law, which means eliminating the rescission loopholes [5:32] that they put in in the CR earlier this year, which the Senate, unfortunately, had caved on [5:36] then. [5:37] And we're ensuring that doesn't happen now. [5:39] Yeah. [5:39] The quick 10 second version for people that haven't followed this is that, you know, [5:42] you need 60 votes to get the filibuster to appropriate funds for the government, but they can pass a [5:47] rescission, which is to claw back some of the money already agreed to by 50 votes. [5:52] So they have this kind of like cake and eat it too model where it's like, oh yeah, we'll [5:55] come together. [5:56] We'll pass a bipartisan appropriations bill. [5:58] And then when we've done that, then we'll go and get rid of the stuff we don't like, [6:02] which just seems like an insane way to negotiate. [6:05] It's no way to negotiate. [6:08] And again, you know, we don't even have to get into the technicalities of this. [6:12] But what is important to understand is that the way that you honor an agreement and the [6:18] way that we honor our fight for health care and to define and to also protect everyday [6:24] Americans' ability to afford their health care, to cover their kids, to defend Medicaid, [6:29] those are the same mechanisms that we use to defend our rule of law, to defend the federal [6:35] workers that we are trying to protect in this shutdown. [6:38] You know, Donald Trump is trying to play this bluffing game of, well, maybe what we're going [6:44] to do is hold the entire—all the federal workforce hostage and fire everybody. [6:49] Donald Trump has been firing everybody. [6:52] We saw this with Doge. [6:53] We've seen this at the State Department. [6:55] We've seen this at the Department of Justice. [6:58] They are firing everybody. [7:00] They are completely eliminating the federal workforce. [7:02] And in order for us to stop this madness, we have to put a stop to it. [7:08] And we have to stop enabling their abuse of power, including their use of rescission. [7:14] And when we're fighting on their health care, it forces them to act in ways in accordance [7:19] with the law and other ways, too. [7:21] Let me ask you this. [7:22] There are some people I have seen who have the following theory of why Senate Democrats [7:28] have not cut a deal where they give eight votes and, you know, move along. [7:33] And that is that Chuck Schumer is worried about a primary challenge from you and is worried [7:38] about the politics to his left flank. [7:41] And so because of that worry about a primary challenge, he's going to shut down the government. [7:45] Ergo, it is AOC's fault that the government's shutting down or that you're somehow the kind [7:51] of fulcrum of this. [7:52] And I want to just ask you straight up, like, are you planning to primary challenge him? [7:56] Do you think that's why he's doing this? [7:57] This is so not about me in this moment. [8:03] This is about people being able to insure their children. [8:09] And I will say, because I saw some senators speculating about this, and I saw some Republican [8:15] members of Congress saying, oh, well, if we have this shutdown, it's because of AOC. [8:20] Well, if that's the case, my office is open and you are free to walk in and negotiate with [8:25] me directly, because what I'm not going to do is tolerate four million uninsured Americans [8:30] because Donald Trump decided one day that he wants to just make sure that kids are dying [8:37] because they don't have access to insurance. [8:39] That's what's not going to happen. [8:41] And so if those senators think that we're having a shutdown because of me, they're free to enter [8:46] my office and negotiate, because what we're not going to do is allow all of millions of [8:52] people in this country to not be able to afford their insulin and their chemotherapy. [8:55] So come strike a deal with me if that's what they really think is going on. [8:58] There is, over the last week, it seems a lot of people, and I include myself among them, [9:05] feel like a sort of rising sense of alarm about the aggressiveness of the sort of authoritarian [9:11] aspirations of this government, you know, firing, essentially firing a U.S. attorney to replace [9:16] him with a patsy who will indict a political enemy. [9:19] The, you know, the continued threat of using the military on American citizens, the ordering [9:26] the troops to Portland and then backing up because it was five-year-old B-roll. [9:30] I don't know. [9:31] Do you, does that, do you feel the same way over this last week or two? [9:35] Does this, does it, or does it feel like continuity to you? [9:37] Do you, are there conversations in your caucus about what this last week has meant? [9:41] I think there's two things that are happening at once, and this is something that's very [9:46] important for people to understand. [9:48] One, there absolutely is an unprecedented abuse of power, destruction of norms, erosion of our [9:57] government and our democracy in order to prop up an authoritarian style of governance. [10:03] That is happening. [10:05] However, they are weaker than they look, and it is important that we remember that because [10:12] what they rely on is the impression of power, the perception of inevitability in us giving [10:21] up in advance to say, oh, what's going to happen if I stand up, et cetera, nothing's going to [10:27] happen. [10:27] They rely on that perception of inevitability and power so that people comply in advance [10:35] and acquiesce in advance and give up in advance. [10:39] And at the end of the day, Donald Trump is at record levels of unpopularity in his tenure. [10:46] The Republican House is at record levels of unpopularity. [10:51] They are underwater across the board, and they know it, and that is causing them to double [10:57] down in public, but it is backfiring. [11:01] That is why whether it's a shutdown, whether it's all of this, they want us to blink first, [11:08] and we have too much to save, protecting people is too important a task for us to give up before [11:18] anything even starts. [11:19] So they may want to send people in, but these National Guardsmen do not want to be turned [11:25] against their fellow Americans. [11:27] We're seeing this here in Washington, D.C. [11:29] It is an insult. [11:30] Donald Trump is insulting the service members of this country by putting them on these silly [11:38] tasks that they themselves do not want to be enforcing. [11:41] And so we have to understand that standing up matters, that our voice matters, to not [11:47] give in to this cynicism because that is what they rely on in order to perpetuate this idea [11:53] that they have total immunity from consequence. [11:58] They will experience the consequences of this, but we have to be the consequence, which is [12:05] why we have to stand tall right now alongside everyday Americans who want us to be standing [12:11] up right now as well. [12:13] I want to—the final question for you is about a ruling that came from a federal district [12:18] judge who's been on the bench for decades and who was appointed by Ronald Reagan. [12:21] It's in the case of Ramesa Oztark and a few other individuals who's alleged that their [12:28] free speech, First Amendment rights as protected by the Constitution were violated by ICE, grabbing [12:33] them because of things they said or wrote. [12:35] And one of the things he gets to is the masking of ICE agents, which is something that we've [12:40] seen in New York City, here in Chicago, and around. [12:42] He says, the court has listened carefully to the reason given by Ozturk's captors for masking [12:46] up. [12:47] It rejects this testimony as disingenuous, squalid, and dishonorable. [12:53] ICE goes mass for a single reason, to terrorize Americans into quiescence. [12:57] This is a federal judge appointed by Reagan. [12:59] In all our history, we've never tolerated an armed mass secret police. [13:02] Carrying on in this fashion, ICE brings indelible obloquy to this administration and everyone [13:07] who works in it. [13:09] Is it at all bracing to read a Reagan-appointed federal district judge, write something like [13:14] that, in finding that Ramesa Oztark and others' rights were violated? [13:19] Of course. [13:20] I mean, once you have, as you said, for a Reagan-appointed judge to be out and out talking [13:27] about secret police in the United States of America in the year 2025, tells us everything [13:33] about what's going on. [13:34] And we get to these extremes through these small erosures and steps, when everyone says, [13:42] makes an exception here or makes an exception there. [13:45] And then before you know it, you have masked agents roaming the streets of this country [13:51] that do not feel entitled to identify themselves or do not feel like as though they answer to [13:58] the American people at all. [13:59] That is dangerous. [14:00] And it is not without saying, it does not go without saying that the people that they [14:07] went after first are some of the most vulnerable activists in the United States, which is to [14:12] say pro-Palestinian organizers and young people, especially those who are on green cards or on [14:20] visas. [14:20] And the idea that we would allow our freedom of speech to be violated and create exceptions [14:30] to that for people who are advocating for the lives of Palestinians, it erodes at the [14:37] very core of American identity, too, because this is a land of the free, but only as long [14:43] as we defend it and make it so. [14:45] And so we have a responsibility to ensure that these individuals are protected, including [14:52] Mahmoud Khalil, who the Trump administration is currently trying to move to deport. [14:58] Yes. [14:58] In fact, trying very, very hard as we speak, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. [15:03] Thank you for your time tonight. [15:04] I appreciate it. [15:04] Of course. [15:05] Thank you very much.