The Daily - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Progressivism and the Pandemic

Episode Date: April 17, 2020

Her mentor and political inspiration has dropped out of the presidential race, and her congressional district has been described as the “epicenter of the epicenter” of the pandemic in New York City. It’s one of the hardest-hit districts in the country, and many of her constituents are having to work outside their homes during the crisis.Today, a conversation with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: In a city ravaged by an epidemic, few places have been as hard hit as Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s district. Here’s a look inside the crisis in Queens.In a recent interview with The Times, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez revealed that she had never met Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. Although she intends to support him, she said that the “process of coming together should be uncomfortable for everyone involved.”

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is The Daily. Today, her mentor and political inspiration has dropped out of the presidential race and her congressional district has been described as the epicenter of the epicenter of the coronavirus. A conversation with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Plus, a preview of a new audio series from The Times. It's Friday, April 17th.

Congresswoman? Hello, Michael? Hey, it's Michael Barbaro. How are you? I'm well. How are you? Thank you so much for making time for us and for joining this Google Hangout and the interview. Are you at home? Yes, I am. I'm at home right now.

Well, for those who, Congresswoman, know you primarily as a national figure and perhaps less so by the district you represent in New York, I wonder if you can start by describing this moment in your district, who your constituents are and how this pandemic is impacting them?

I appreciate that question because who my constituents are largely informs my politics and what we advocate for in terms of a national agenda. My community is overwhelmingly working class. It is about half immigrant. It is about half immigrant. It is about 75% people of color.

We're one of the most diverse communities in the world, not just in the United States. In Jackson Heights alone, over 200 languages are spoken. Wow. And how is the pandemic impacting those constituents in your district? Out of the top 10 zip codes in the United States that are impacted by COVID casualties, the top five are in my district with the top three. Yeah, with the top three being all in our district as well. In New York City, about 65% of all frontline workers are people of color. So the folks who are stocking our grocery stores,

the folks who are acting as our home health aides that are visiting our elderly parents and the disabled, the folks who, you know, are working in our hospitals, they are the people who are disproportionately impacted. Are you saying that the reason they are getting so sick, your constituents, is because they're disproportionately being asked to go into work in the midst of this? Oh, absolutely. Because this pandemic is not happening in a vacuum. It's happening in a social and economic context. And, you know, there are people that are saying,

okay, we're going to transition to working from home. But working from home is an enormous privilege. And to be able to do your job remotely, it cleaves along class lines. And the people who need to make the sacrifice, those are frontline workers. And those frontline workers are often underpaid. They have hourly jobs. They don't have health insurance. Or if they do, they are underinsured. It's not just about who gets it, but it's about who suffers from it the most. And what they're telling me is

that, you know, they're very proud of the work that they do. They're very proud of the role that they play because they are essential workers. But what they don't feel is supported. And a lot of them feel like they're just being sent in for slaughter because they are being asked to do work without the proper protections. They're saying, you're sending us into war without weapons. I was in line to go to the drugstore a couple days ago, and there was this woman behind me and she had a, I believe, a kidney condition and she needed to take her medicine and go to the bathroom. And she was out in public and all the stores were closed and the line to the drugstore was so long, they would not let her in because there were so many other people that needed medical attention.

And we're trying to say, hey, I have XYZ, I need to get my medicine now, I need to cut in front of the line. And so this is kind of what we're experiencing. I need to get my medicine now. I need to cut in front of the line. And so this is kind of what we're experiencing. While all this is going on, we have ICE raids that are happening where ICE officers are knocking on people's doors while other people are knocking on their door to deliver goods from food pantries. So which knock do you answer? Right, right. You know, ICE doesn't always present themselves as clearly marked as they should. And so sometimes these officers are in plain clothes. And, you know, when you have a stranger knocking on your door, I've been doing the deliveries myself as well. And I would knock on people's doors and people were extremely scared

about who I was and everyone's wearing a face mask. So it's, it's hard to tell at first, you know, it's, it's an extraordinary amount of uncertainty. And by the way, these are the people who are delivering our food. These are the people who are delivering your food to your door who don't have healthcare, don't have access to testing and are extremely vulnerable. So, so given everything you've just described, I want to talk about your response to the government's really large stimulus bill, a bill designed to provide relief to struggling workers in particular at this moment. And therefore, a bill I imagine would benefit a fair number of your constituents, perhaps more than in most districts. You stood up on the

floor of the House and you called that bill shameful. And my understanding is that you withheld your support for it. So help me understand that. Yeah, because, you know, it wasn't designed to help working people. This bill was not designed to help everyday families. It was designed to engineer one of the largest corporate bailouts and giveaways in modern American history. And it used the desperation of working families in order to get that done. And so, you know, when it comes to my district, my district is half immigrant. These stimulus checks don't even go to mixed status families where you have a dreamer child or a citizen child and an undocumented but taxpaying parent. Well, let me let me make sure I understand. It sounds like your biggest issue with the bill is that it doesn't cover undocumented families, of which there are many in your

district. Is that right? Well, I think my biggest issue with the bill is the $4 trillion in leveraged giveaways to Wall Street. It's hard to almost prioritize the issues with the bill. And by the way, I do not fault those who voted in support of this bill, because as I said on the floor, what Trump and Mitch McConnell essentially did was put everyone in an impossible decision. It's do you support one of the largest kind of corporate bailouts in American history in order to get crucial but small amounts of assistance to families in need. But you're not saying that to take one of the measures, that $600 a week in enhanced unemployment benefits, you're not saying that that wasn't designed to protect American families,

right? But it sounds like you take issue with other elements of the bill that also protect large corporations. And in order for the American economy to recover from this, don't those corporations also need government assistance so that they can survive and employ people? So yes and no, in that these big multi-billion dollar companies do not need this kind of assistance to survive. They just don't. And it's always rugged, as Martin Luther King said, rugged capitalism for the poor and unfettered, you know, endless socialism for the rich in that, you know, if you're an everyday person and you are on the brink of eviction.

Really, what we kind of tell you is we just shrug our shoulders and say, you know, better luck next time. But the $600 a week for out-of-work Americans, the reports are that for many people, especially many working class Americans, that was actually a form of a raise, a modest raise. And so that would seem to be something that would be very much in your interest. Oh, yes. No, absolutely. And to be clear, I'm not criticizing the expansion of unemployment benefits. In fact, I think that's probably the most or one of the most redeeming aspects of the bill. That's ultimately what I'm talking about, is that this administration held that hostage so that it could leverage $4 trillion for Wall Street. And I understand the argument about like, don't these corporations need something to survive? I think

the real companies do, but we shouldn't be subsidizing people's stock prices. You know, I'm mindful, Congresswoman, that you were something of a lone voice opposing the stimulus bill. And I think that speaks to what I want to talk about next, which is the state of the progressive movement in the United States. As recently as just a few weeks ago, it very much looked like a democratic socialist and possibly the most progressive candidate to ever run for president, a candidate that you credit with inspiring your own political run in 2018, was going to be the Democratic nominee, Bernie Sanders. And last week, he officially dropped out of the race. This week, he endorsed Joe Biden. out of the race. This week, he endorsed Joe Biden. Can you talk to me about how you are feeling about that at this moment, a moment when from everything you're saying, progressive ideas and progressive

policies have never felt more urgently needed? Yeah, you know, I think, obviously, I feel very mixed about this moment. On one hand, I feel that we are winning the larger conversation around the issues. In exit poll after exit poll, we have had almost stunning support for progressive policies, for Medicare for all, for a living wage, for tuition-free public colleges and universities. So it's not a rejection of the agenda. I think what we're seeing right now is just an emerging progressive movement that really just exploded in a real way four years ago. Bernie Sanders really unleashed that. I mean, I remember in 2016, I was a waitress, and it was literally the first time I had ever heard in my life a political candidate running for president that was actually articulating my material reality, Actually telling me that and telling people in this country that being underinsured is a norm for working people. And it is an unacceptable norm.

And demanding a $15 an hour wage in 2016 was insane. It was totally insane. And then last year, the House just passed it on the floor. And now we've got to push for 20 because by the time we get this thing done, inflation is going to be killing us anyway. So I feel mixed because I feel like we're really winning in terms of movement. But electorally, there are unique challenges. Winning on issues is not the same thing, obviously, as winning an election. But how do you reconcile that? I think that's the kind of question. How do you reconcile what you see as an embrace of these progressive policies with essentially

the collapse of the Sanders campaign? Well, I think there's a couple of things. One is that I think sometimes the mistake that some folks in the progressive arena make is that they think that everybody just kind of looks for policies, has a checklist, and votes for the candidate that aligns with their interests and what they support. And a lot of voters are not like that. Some certainly are. It's certainly a value to me, but it's not everything. So if you had to sum up what you think happened, why the Sanders campaign didn't become the Sanders nomination, what would the headline be? I mean, I'm not a good headline writer or a headline editor, but I do think clearly there wasn't enough work done with outreach in Southern Black electorates in particular.

Senator Sanders was successful in certain elements of Black support. Young Black people certainly supported him. But obviously, South Carolina was a huge tipping point for the senator. There was, of course, this consolidation that was very dramatic behind Joe Biden just the weekend before South Carolina, which certainly did a lot. But Joe Biden was doing very well in South Carolina the entire time. He has important relationships into our communities. And so that was certainly an important element that should not go unignored. Right. You think the campaign should have done a better job with Southern Black voters making the

case to them for Sanders for his policies? Right. And also understanding the relational organizing. You know, Senator Sanders did very well with Latino electorates and Latino voters. You know, I think his campaign made a very strong effort to understand us, you know, and it flips, right? Joe Biden did not do well with Latino voters during the primary, but Latino voters and Black voters play very different roles. during the primary. But Latino voters and Black voters play very different roles. They're two different communities with aligned interests. But, you know, I think that you have to do that outreach to all communities. So, you know, I think it comes down to a lot of different things. It sounds like you're saying if Sanders had accomplished with Black voters what he clearly

accomplished with Latino voters, this might be a different story. Oh, for sure. I think so. We'll be right back. So let's talk about the presumptive Democratic nominee who you have not endorsed, Joe Biden. Earlier this week, you spoke to my colleague at The Times, Ested Herndon, about that. And at the time, you said that you had never spoken to Joe Biden, which I have to confess was a surprise, and that he had not yet reached out to you. Has that changed? Some folks on his team have reached out to us, so our teams are in touch. But you have not yet spoken to him?

No, I have not. There has been this question about how much Joe Biden will absorb the progressive policies that the Bernie Sanders candidacy represented. The fact that you have never spoken to Biden and that you, as one of the leading members of the progressive movement, are not one of the first places he turned when Sanders dropped out, correct me if I'm wrong, that does not seem to bode especially well for the progressive movement when it comes to that question of will Joe Biden absorb it? Do you

see it that way? Well, I mean, I think what's important is that and what I want to make clear is that I will be voting for Joe Biden in November. I will be supporting him in the general election. I think it's really clear that we understand the stakes of November and that we understand how important this is. I think sometimes some folks, especially I've seen from, you know, from different camps are kind of looking at me and they're like, oh, well, who are you? Like, why? You're just a freshman congresswoman. Why do you like, why is this even important? Why is this kind of important? And what I want to make clear is that this is not an ego thing. I'm not doing this to pull a stunt or anything like that. I think it's very important to make sure that our nominee has plans and is speaking to young people and Latino voters and

working class voters. And I push not to just score a point, but because I think this is what we need to do to get young people and Latino voters out. It's not just about this voting well for progressives. It's about us having a goddamn planet to live on in 10 years or in 20 years. It's about making sure that babies don't get put in a cage again, to make sure that we end the scourge of mass incarceration. The thing that I think is tough sometimes when it comes to this overlap between progressive policies and electoralism is that sometimes the most important communities for winning an election are not the ones for which progressive policies are most

important. And, you know, there's a very strong emphasis on affluent suburban voters when it comes to winning elections. And that's great. I understand they are important for winning the election. They are also a constituency that is uniquely protected from the life and death consequences of a Trump administration and the difference between progressive policy and not. You know, these same affluent suburban white voters are the ones that don't have to worry

about their babies in a cage and they may find it uncivil and i think it's and that's that that's the fundamental tension right is that they are necessary they are important they are valued um and they are needed to win an election right at the same time you know the people that tend to be most impacted by mass incarceration, by unequal access to health care, are sometimes electorates that are taken for granted. And so that's the issue. It's like campaigning is poetry and governance is prose. and says prose, sometimes the poetry, the people you're singing to, and the people that you need to win an election are ones that can be put off by intersectional policy, by talking about ICE and things like that. And that's just a contradiction we're going to have to live with and try to figure out. Well, so help me understand exactly what you're advocating for, right? Because it sounds like you're acknowledging the challenge for someone like Joe Biden, which is to win moderates and win the general election. swing voters in Wisconsin, in Michigan, in the Midwest. So do you or do you not want him to embrace those policies in this moment, knowing that for those suburban voters you just mentioned

who are insulated, that might be a major turnoff, might cost him the general election? Well, again, I think one thing that we can point to is the data that we're seeing in the polling that we're seeing that progressive policies are popular. And I think this is when we start kind of digging into this issue of class and race. the opinion that quote-unquote class issues may be issues like Medicare for all and tuition-free public colleges and universities and living wages. Those are much more, and a Green New Deal, frankly, which pulls very well in those types of communities. I think there are other issues that are unpopular with those types of voters, issues like questioning the very structure of ICE and ending mass incarceration. I do think that one of the things that is compelling about Joe Biden for a lot of voters is just a return to quote-unquote normal. I think it's an uncomfortable reality in politics

that a lot of people do vote based on kind of a vibe that they get from a candidate, less than just their actual on-the-paper policy commitments. The fact of the matter is, is that how a candidate packages themselves can be sometimes to some voters just as important as the actual inside, that the outside does matter. And I think the outside that Joe Biden represents is this like a symbolic return to a pre-Trump time, which is very appealing to affluent suburban voters. It sounds like you're saying Biden should choose wisely which progressive policies he embraces in this moment to allow for that return to normal, which which sounds like you being more compromising and pragmatic than I recall you sounding in the past. I always think these conversations about compromise and pragmatism to be

very strange because, because people of color, I think sometimes have often been the most pragmatic people in this country because we have to make decisions based on survival and, you know, working class people, you know, it's, was this the matchup that I wanted? Is this a November ballot that I wanted? No. But I know that there's a difference between our communities, at least having a fighting chance and having no chance. You know, I think communities often have to make decisions of harm reduction and not like benefit optimization all the time. So Joe Biden and Donald Trump

is a harm reduction contest for you. It's not the ideal contest. Depending on what happens, you know, in terms of the policies that get adopted. And that's why I'm pushing right now, because you don't want to have a harm reduction election. That's not good for Democrats. But the difference between a harm reduction election and not, and a hope election, is policy and a plan for people's futures. And that has yet to be determined.

I wonder if in the time between now and then, which is a meaningful number of months, the fragility of our social fabric will become even more clear to people. And Americans might embrace some of the policies that you're fighting for and that a moderate candidate like Joe Biden, who's talking about returning to normal, might normally be wary of? The things that Sanders was all about. Oh, yeah. Well, we're already seeing that. National support for Medicare for All has increased since this pandemic has started. Government, at its best, is an instrument of the public and the public's means of taking care of itself. And this pandemic has just exposed us that the fragility of our system, I think I already know. I already hear people telling me, I can't believe I didn't see this before. I cannot believe I didn't see this before. And I'm just thankful that people are seeing it now. Well, then do you think this moment represents an opportunity for the progressive moment?

I know it's weird to think of tragedy as an opportunity, and can it capture that moment without a figure like Sanders at the top? Well, I think speaking as an organizer, not as a congresswoman, the thing about the progressive movement is that electoral politics is just one part of it. It's not all of it. Certainly the progressive movement survived after 2016 and

Bernie was not running for a few years. And if anything, that movement strengthened. It elected several members to Congress. And so I think that it improves. You know, it improves. And a lot of electoral politics has to do, for better or for worse, with the candidate. We're not just voting based on these amorphous figures that do not have identities. We're voting on people and personalities as well. Are you saying that Sanders was, in the end, a flawed candidate? I think, you know, I think ultimately it's just about acknowledging the reality,

and the reality was that we didn't win. So I guess flawed in the sense that he did not get the nomination. But, you know, I think that in the function of every candidate, every human being is flawed. We are all flawed. There's no such thing as a flawless candidate. Joe Biden is flawed. I'm flawed. Bernie Sanders is flawed.

It's what makes novels great. There would be no great stories without flawed figures. So, you know, I, of course, everyone is. So this is my final question for you, Congresswoman. You haven't yet spoken to Joe Biden since Bernie Sanders dropped out. I suspect you have spoken to Senator Sanders. Is there anything you can say about that conversation? Um, yeah. I mean, I think Bernie and I just talk about what's next. We just talk about what we're going to do next to help

guarantee healthcare to people. And it takes a lot of different forms. It's about legislation. It's about organizing. It's about coalition building. But it's just about what's next. Has he said anything to you in the wake of his decision to drop out that you're holding on to? Yeah, but I hold on to it. It's a private moment, you're saying? Yeah, yeah. Well, Congresswoman, we really want to thank you for your time. I wish you and your district the best of luck. We're sending you best wishes for as quick a recovery from this pandemic as possible. Of course. Thank you. And our community thanks you.

Good luck. Thank you. Bye-bye. We'll be right back. Today, The Times launches a new series about our lives spent living on the Internet. Hello, California. California, it is New York. Hi, New York. Hi.

Hi, Larissa. Who else is there in the room? Cindy's setting up in the other room. Is Julia there by chance? julia this q anon guy um is free to talk anytime oh great okay all right so where do we begin um hey how's it going bros my name is so many places we could start what dream or vision do you want to turn into reality? Let's see. Did this stuff track with her spending more time on the internet?

Yes, absolutely. What if we start with when I first called you last year? Do you remember that? I remember that you called, and I don't remember all the specifics, but I remember that you were pretty alarmed. Mm-hmm. Unprecedented is how police are describing this attack. Scores dead as two mosques are targeted during Friday prayers.

It was right after that horrible attack at Christchurch, New Zealand. Mm-hmm. The gunman stormed in wearing a helmet with a camera on it. Moving from room to room, killing men, women, and children. This guy had like strapped a GoPro on himself and like angled it in a way to make his gun look like a video game. In the most extraordinary fashion, he live streamed his attack. And in his manifesto, like essentially said

that he was doing it as like a, a big real-life shitpost. Right. It's now clear he was deeply familiar with far-right groups on the internet. That's where he posted his so-called manifesto. This was basically him trolling people. He knew that this would be this horrible tragedy that would become an international news story. And also that like certain people in certain parts of the internet would find it really funny. And that whole thing just felt to me like it was like the strangest and darkest version of this thing that I'm becoming more and more consumed with worry about all the time.

more and more consumed with worry about all the time, which is like the internet is doing something to us that is profoundly changing who we are. Yeah. Yeah. Like I keep finding myself in conversations with friends or family or like this one night I was at dinner with this guy who was sharing this like very hyperbolic view about something and I remembered like as he was sharing it like I think I read this almost word for word on Twitter today and I asked him like is this what you really think or is this what you read online and he kind of paused and was like I don't know I don't know if I'm paying enough attention to like what the difference between those two things is.

Yeah. I'm wondering, like, if you think you're still being manipulated. This is a question that I have been just obsessing over for the last several years. How do I tell when I'm being manipulated? Everything goes back to the global cabal. There are so many videos like that. What's real and what's not.

It has to be true. And as I was, like, stressing out about all this stuff, I had this realization that, like, oh, I work at the New York Times. I am surrounded by very smart, well-resourced reporters who could probably, like, help me find an answer to what the hell's going on. And one of the first calls that I made was you. Yeah. Kevin Roos, because you are the most online person that I know. And I remember you saying like, we got to report on this. We got to go investigate. And then I was actually like, I was one tiny step ahead of you because I had just talked to this guy who I thought could really help me understand what the internet is actually capable of doing to a person. Let's do this.

I remember you saying essentially like, I'm about to step into a rabbit hole. Do you want to come with me? Give me a little test here. Oh, sure. Testing. One, two, three. Do, re, mi. In just a minute, we're going on an exploration the likes of which you've only seen on futuristic television shows. We're going to take a ride on the Internet. And today, our destination is the

World Wide Web. Now that I've gotten on the Internet, I'd rather be on my computer than doing just about anything. Internet sites will soon become alive with virtual characters, interactivity and intelligent agents, enabling you to do things you could never have done before. You'll find yourself wondering how you ever got along without access to the information Superhighway. To hear more, go to whatever app you're using to hear me right now. Search for Rabbit Hole, two words, and hit subscribe. That's it for The Daily.

I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.