Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., reacted angrily to President Donald Trump‘s address to a joint session of Congress yesterday by urging Democrats to organize in GOP-heavy districts to protest against supposed drastic cuts to Medicaid.
During an Instagram Live on Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez slammed Trump’s speech, accusing him of spreading a lot of misinformation before claiming the Republicans were coming for Medicare. Even though Trump didn’t mention Medicare cuts in his speech, AOC claimed it was part of a crafty tactic used by the presidency to achieve his goal.
“These Republicans, I’m telling you all, they are getting scared,” Ocasio-Cortez said in the 54-minute video.
“Trump not mentioning Medicaid at the State of the Union is the game. He doesn’t talk about it. [It’s] what he fears and he knows it’s dynamite.”
“The House Republicans know that it’s dynamite for them and that’s why they’re talking about not hosting town halls.”
“We need to be creatively organizing in Republican districts. And I don’t want to hear, okay, Republicans don’t listen. They are afraid of this. I’m telling you.”
Ocasio-Cortez urged Democrats to host town halls in Rep. Nicole Malliotakis’ districts of Staten Island and Brooklyn in New York, Rep. Jeff Van Drew’s district in New Jersey, and Rep. Mike Lawler’s district of Westchester County in New York.
“If you’re near a Republican, if you are in a Republican district and your Republican is not hosting a town hall, it’s time to do community town halls,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“It’s time to do community teachings. It’s time to do community town halls. It is time to start advertising their absence.”
However, Trump had previously said he was committed to protecting Medicare and Medicaid, while the White House has emphasized reforms to reduce government waste. Meanwhile, some Republican lawmakers expressed concern about the level of spending cuts being sought by fiscal hawks to offset the cost of Trump’s policies, arguing it could ultimately force unworkable cuts on Medicaid.
Ocasio-Cortez called on Democrats to take advantage of the Republicans’ concerns.
“If Democrats can step on a rake, Republicans can step on a rake. And I am telling you, they are stepping on one of the biggest rakes in modern American history,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“They are messing with Social Security y’all. I need you to understand how much of a political no-go that has been for both parties for a very long time, for a reason. Because your stuff will collapse.”
Ocasio-Cortez then turned her sights on Elon Musk, calling on those who say the U.S. doesn’t have enough money to pay for social safety nets to look at billiionaire’s government contracts.
“We let a–holes like Elon Musk cut Medicaid and cut Social Security in order for him to pay for his own tax cuts and his own billion dollars in private federal contracts.”
“This guy takes billions and billions of your tax dollars, of your public funds. And it’s not just Elon. All these guys, a lot of a lot of these tech guys that were standing behind Trump at the inauguration.”
AOC then compared them to defense contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin, saying she believes that healthcare is a human right.
“They are robbing us of the tiny slivers of what we have left in our collective public social safety net in order to get $1 billion defense contracts,” AOC said.
“They fund propaganda for it and they buy platforms like Twitter and, yeah, Meta, and all these other things.”
“We cannot give up on winning the hearts and minds of our fellow Americans.”
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