At a 'Fight Oligarchy' event in Tucson, Arizona on Saturday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) spoke about Republican cuts to the Federal Government.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Now, again, I want to remind you all here that we're not powerless in this moment.
00:06But we need to take stock of what is happening because one of our best first steps is awareness.
00:14We need to say and call out what is happening so that we can educate others and talk to
00:20others about what's happening right now.
00:22Because the same billionaires who are taking a wrecking ball to our country derive their
00:28power from dividing working people apart.
00:32They specialize in getting us to turn on one another.
00:39And these billionaires bankrolling some of the most divisive media and some of the most
00:47disgusting, hateful posts that we see on social media, on television media, they want to divide
00:55us along lines of left or right, race and gender, creed and culture.
01:03And they will throw out every label and judgment and cultural debate in the book to keep us
01:09distracted, folks.
01:12This is what the focus on trans kids is all about.
01:16Come on, 1%, 1% of the entire population.
01:22If people want to have conversations about that, take it to the NCAA.
01:25It doesn't need to be on the floor of the United States Congress.
01:29We need to be taxing the rich on the floor of the United States Congress.
01:34We need to be establishing guaranteed health care on the floor of the United States Congress,
01:39not erasing American history on the floor of the United States Congress.
01:44We need to be passing a living wage on the floor of the United States Congress, and we're
01:50going to send a message to Donald Trump and Elon Musk and every Republican in the state
01:56of Arizona that we will not be distracted.
01:59We got our eyes on the prize, and we will build the nation that we want for ourselves.
02:07Now, I understand that Donald Trump and the Republican Party's disdain for the working
02:18class doesn't just come from not being raised right.
02:24It's a shorthand for the right wing's entire political agenda and a certain ugly kind of
02:33politics that at its core is about lying to and screwing over working and middle class
02:40Americans so that they can steal from our healthcare, social security, and veterans
02:46to pay for tax cuts for the rich and bailouts for their crypto-billionaire friends.
02:51But there's a word for this kind of thing, Tucson.
02:57You know it?
02:58Corruption.
02:59I'll say it in Spanish, corrupción.
03:07Que los corruptos vayan.
03:10And seeing all of this stack up from how overwhelming and selfish all this looting is to the constant
03:18barrage of phone notifications and headlines day to day is enough to make even the best
03:24of us want to give up.
03:27Want to give in to despair.
03:30And trust me, I want you to know that if you feel that way, I get it.
03:35I do understand.
03:37Because when the system is stacked against you, it's hard to feel like anything you do
03:42matters.
03:43That we matter in our democracy.
03:46And it is easy to give in to despair.
03:50And I can tell you for a while there, when I was waitressing and working double shifts
03:55and never able to get ahead, and just when you think that you're close enough, you take
03:59two steps behind, you have to go, you get sick, you get a hospital bill, whatever it
04:04is, you can't keep up.
04:07And when I was in that space, I did try to give up.
04:10I tried to stop caring.
04:13And just keep my head down and work my shifts and accept that this is just how things are.
04:19But I'll tell you, Tucson, that's no way to live.
04:24It's no way to live.
04:25And we do not have to live like this, and in fact, we cannot live like this anymore.