U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) used a Spanish-language television interview Sunday to both defend socialism and declare if President Trump thinks she’s crazy, “I think that’s a good thing.”
The avowed left-wing representative was speaking with “Noticias Telemundo” in Las Vegas, where the freshman congresswoman hosted a Spanish-language town hall for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders.
During the exchange Ocasio-Cortez also claimed without evidence Trump is “afraid of women” — most notably “strong” and “Latina” women.
“If the president thinks that I’m crazy, I think that’s a good thing because I think it would be a problem if he said he agrees with my ideas because he has many problems,” Ocasio-Cortez told Noticias Telemundo’s Correspondent Guadalupe Venegas. “He’s racist, he’s anti-immigrant, but more than just that — his administration is corrupt. I think he’s afraid of women – of strong women, of Latina women. The values of the president are very backward.”
Ocasio-Cortez did grudgingly admit Trump never explicitly said he fears Latina women, but she claimed to her mind he’s demonstrated his fears in Twitter messages and in his State of the Union address back in February.
When asked about concerns that she and Sanders endorse socialism, Ocasio-Cortez sought to split the understanding of socialism as seen in the United States and other countries.
Venegas pointed to Venezuela – where socialist policies, as implemented by dictators Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro, have devastated a once proudly self-sufficient nation and turned its citizens into mendicants.
“When the president or other people want to say this, the first I say is look at the politics, the proposals because we’re not advocating for complete control of the economy. We’re talking about basic human economic rights – education, health care, a worthy salary,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Here in the United States, those values are called ‘socialism.’ And for me, that’s a commentary on the present moment in the United States. Things that are human rights are called socialism. It’s very different what we’re seeing here and in other countries.”
Ocasio-Cortez said she supports fellow traveler Sanders because “he understands that this isn’t a campaign about a person. It’s a campaign about our movement for working families in the United States.” She said she’ll ultimately support whichever candidate receives the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination because “we have to get this president out of office.”
“It’s not good for a country as diverse as the United States to have such an intolerant president,” she scolded.
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