The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart - JON & AOC

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

As Trump returns to the White House, backed by a coalition of billionaires and blue-collar workers alike, we’re joined by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Together, we confront the growing disconnect between Democrats and their working class roots, discuss strategies for advancing progressive priorities in a resistant Congress, and explore what it would take to rebuild a party that actually delivers for working people. Follow The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart on social media for more:  > YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@weeklyshowpodcast > Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weeklyshowpodcast > TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@weeklyshowpodcast  > X: https://x.com/weeklyshowpod   > BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/theweeklyshowpodcast.com Host/Executive Producer – Jon Stewart Executive Producer – James Dixon Executive Producer – Chris McShane Executive Producer – Caity Gray Lead Producer – Lauren Walker Producer – Brittany Mehmedovic  Video Editor & Engineer – Rob Vitolo Audio Editor & Engineer – Nicole Boyce Researcher & Associate Producer – Gillian Spear Music by Hansdle Hsu — This podcast is brought to you by: ZipRecruiter Try it for free at this exclusive web address: ziprecruiter.com/ZipWeekly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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stands for total fund savings adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. or maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Hey everybody, welcome. I came out of my seat on that one. I got, I was so excited to be speaking with you. Welcome to the weekly show, Pod. We are recording this on the Tuesday following the inauguration of the 47th president of the United States, also the 45th president of the United States.

Mr. Donald Trump, our guest today will be Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I'm excited to talk to her because this is shit is changing by the millisecond. Things are executive orders are flying. Oligarchs are tweeting. It's all happening. Everything that was done in this previous administration has been repealed. The Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America. Canada is now officially classified as our hat. I don't know what's changing. Everything, we're not in the climate accord. We don't, America has announced itself as we don't give a fuck. The mountains have different names. I don't even know what I'm looking at on a map. I feel like it's one of those, when you get one of those maps from like the 19,

when England would just go in and just redraw like, okay, that country doesn't exist anymore. I'm just gonna call that, I don't know, Lebanon. Why don't we do that? Here's Syria and draw a little line. And I don't know, it's going to take weeks to just parse just what the rules are? And any more about gravity is still in effect, I believe, or did he

executive order that as well? I don't quite know. You're apparently now allowed to shit in the water. Like, I don't know. It's all a blur. Everything that we thought we knew about the infrastructure and what to call, America's back, baby. We're back. Not just as a country and a family of nations,

but as the nation, we win, you lose. Be-ah-ch. I don't know if that's, whatever that translates to in Latin, that is the new motto of the United States of America. And I'm excited to talk to a person today that I think provides a modicum of hope, a level of fight and of ideology that I think, boy, needs to be injected into this more abundant party more than ever. So I am just going to jump on in and introduce our guest for today's podcast. All right. So we are going to get to our guests. We're very excited. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Welcome. You are the congresswoman for New York's 14th district. The fight in 14th. That's right. Thanks for having me. 700,000 strong, the Bronx and Queens. And I thank you so much for taking the time. How was your day yesterday?

What did you do? I kept my ass at home. Inside. Inside. Did you watch the proceedings? Or did you try and avoid everything? I watched his speech and I watched them not be able to turn on the music for Carrie Underwood.

Carrie Underwood? I felt so bad for her. She's just standing there and they're like, we're going to be the administration of competence. We're going to make everything work again, except the PA. Yeah, I was like, we are off to a great start here. But I watched his remarks and am leading up to it and then I was out. I was like, all right, I've seen enough. And nothing surprising. Was it strange to you? One thing that struck me was sort of this sense that the Bidens or the Democrats wanted to preserve this decorum.

You know, it was such a, I have but one that seemed to want to honor the tea ceremony and to bring them back. And is there a difference between, obviously, is there a middle ground between storming the Capitol and would you like oolong or throat coat? Like, what are we doing? I totally agree with it. But this is like a thing in the Democratic party.

This is a thing particularly with the Democratic establishment. It is this, like, I actually think it speaks a lot to some of the class differences and the class striation in the Democratic party because it's, you know, yesterday was also MLK Day. Boy, did that get lost. Yeah, yes it did.

And one of the things that MLK would talk about, would he would talk about, you know, this tension between people who value order over valuing justice. And I think there is this really strong attachment to order and business as usual. And I think also a lot of Democrats see that as a contrast, like, they're like, see, we don't, we're not them, so we are gonna ask you what kind of tea you want,

as opposed to calling it like it is, which I think sometimes is seen as a little more gauche. And that is in many ways kind of how you made your bones. And I think you're right, like even when you think about, and not to get into the weeds, but so you were on the oversight committee Committee and I thought did really great work there.

I mean, you know, good questioning, the kind of questioning that I think would get to the gist of an issue or would break it down in terms of what the dynamics were. And when you wanted to be the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, the Democrats decided to hand it to and nothing against Representative Connolly, but he's 74 years old. And it's almost as if they were saying, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez is really great at this, but he's 74. So there's nothing we can do.

He's a 74 year old man. He's first in line. I mean, there are rules and structures and orders in the Democratic Party. One that we know very well is seniority. It's a seniority rule type of system. And it is true. My run was, it was a challenging of an of system. And it is true, my run was, it was a challenging of an entire system. It wasn't just about me or about like any,

again, I think Jerry's great, but it wasn't just about two individuals. By the way, that was his campaign slogan. Yeah. I think Jerry's great. Yeah. You know? But it was about challenging a system and a system and a way of making decisions in

the party. And the problem with that is that when you challenge the way that Democrats, when you ask Democrats sometimes to challenge the way that they've been operating for decades. I mean, it's existential in some ways. Like if we don't make decisions like this, what could we possibly do? What would result? That's amazing. And doesn't Trump's rise and the way that he's operating make farce of that. Yeah. I mean, in some ways, he clowns them that it doesn't look like a holding to protocol.

It looks like submission. It doesn't in any way appear to be they're maintaining the thing about the party that is ineffectual, that doesn't do anything, yet that's the thing they seem to cling to the most. Yeah, and not only that, but the other thing that makes it dangerous is that it makes us remarkably predictable. It makes the Democratic Party highly predictable

in the decisions it's going to make, in the people that we're going to select, in the type of people we advance and the way that we're going to select, in the type of people we advance, in the way that we make decisions. And when we are highly predictable to the opposition, they will be one, two, four steps ahead. They know what Democrats are going to do. You're talking more on a procedural level,

or do you mean also a kind of ideological level? I think both. I think they know what we're going to do politically. They know what our, you know, how we position ourselves even within internal squabbles, you know, when there's a progressive or whatever you may want to say about it. They kind of can map us out. And because of that, they're able to operate around that. They'll say, oh, yeah, they're going to do that, or they're not going to do that.

There was never any question about who or who wouldn't show up to the inauguration, for example, or how they would be received, I think. And they know that. And so they're able to, And they know that. And so they're able to, to your point, Trump is able to run roughshod through these things because he has a lot of the party's number in terms of how they're going to operate. And I think that sometimes making certain calculated but unpredictable choices is a way

that we can put ourselves, give ourselves the upper hand. And it also, I think in some ways, in some ways it reveals some of the Democrats posturing as performative. You know, when you're creating apocalyptic messaging about a fascist. Literally. Who is literally coming over and doing these things. And then when he

wins, sitting down with watercress sandwiches and cream cheese and doing the whole nine yards, it makes you wonder, well, did you believe any of the shit you were saying before? Exactly. Or was that something, again, that was just a part of your messaging? Exactly. Or was that something, again, that was just a part of your messaging? Yeah, no, it's really true. And I think something that what makes this go around with Trump so much more dangerous than the first time around is exactly what you're saying. It's that he is much more normalized this time around than he was the first time.

The first time people were really on edge, they were on guard, they were very vigilant about any break that he would have with these norms. This time, the norms are becoming him. The norms are embracing him. Even these like little things that people may not like everyday working people may not care about, but they are strong cultural signals. Oscar de la Renta like dressing all of the women, like there's all these cultural symbols, right? Participating now in this when they wouldn't have participated in the past.

Exactly, exactly. I see what you're saying. okay. So like all of these people that were scared before about like being associated with him from the most common basic level to the most elite level, they're all like, they're all all in now because this is now a billionaire feeding frenzy. It is a kiss ass race. It is, it is how can I show how much fealty I have to Donald Trump in order to get my dicks. And I think that what's really important for people to understand and like now and every day of this administration is that you're being ripped off. You're being ripped off, dude.

Like everyone is being ripped off and he goes up there and he says what he wants to say. But he's like, he's just the quintessential New York con man. I mean, for God's sakes, they launched meme coins. I can remember in the first administration, somebody would animate something and the Democrats are screaming, he violated the Hatch Act. Everybody would go crazy and then everybody have to look up the Hatch Act. And now these guys are literally just launching meme coins before the inauguration and piling up billions of dollars in wealth. Yes.

It's kind of an incredible transformation, but again, it feels like, let me ask you this, because maybe this is a different way of looking at it, because in some ways it reveals, to the cynical mind the way that you believe this shit always has worked in the past that the idea of and I'll give you an example the gentleman Martin who is running for Democratic National Committee Chair right so he says he comes out and he says uh hey man we're not gonna you know're going to take money from the good billionaires, not the bad billionaires.

And if money corrupts, and this happened in a conversation I had with Congresswoman Pelosi as well. She said, money corrupts the process. I said, well, you raised $35 million. And, oh, no, no, no, no, no, that's it. We can't disarm. And I said, well, how does money corrupt the Democrats? And she said, well, it doesn't.

It corrupts them. Money's bad for them, but for us, it's good money. And isn't it almost better for us to now have this arrangement be explicit? Yeah. And be out in the open so that we understand this is how the world fucking works. This is how it goes round.

Yeah, I mean, even, but the thing is like, it will still be hidden even if you make it explicit. A, like these meme coins, people do not really understand nor should they frankly in a lot of ways, crypto. understand nor should they, frankly, in a lot of ways, crypto. But if, God forbid, your job requires you to understand this, one of the things about crypto, I mean, at the end of the day, a lot of crypto is just scamming poor people and money laundering for wealthy people.

Right. But doesn't that reflect the reality of our system in the first place? It's just a more grotesque hyperbolic version of a system that's not working. I think actually like when you look at how, for example, Putin has operated in Russia and the way they've been able to kind of take things over in these oligarchies, these kleptocracies, they prey on that exact logic, on that exact predicate, which is that everyone's corrupt and it's all corrupt. And so who gives a fuck?

Sorry. Who gives a fuck? Yes. How dare you? At long last, have you no decency? And you might as well just get yours. And the problem with that is that we just entirely give up on a better world. That's the crux of it. It's to get good people to just give up and say, this is just how the world works now,

and I might as well just throw up my hands. And the fact of the matter is, I know this is hard, maybe this is something I would say or whatever, but I think it actually is important to understand that there are good people and we should be doing good things. And when we decide to make that the norm and when we decide to uphold it and value it, and even regardless of party, yeah, like don't vote for the people who are doing bad things, whether they're a Democrat or a Republican.

We decide to hold people to a higher standard, then things actually do get better. All right, we're going to take a quick break and be right back. We are back. But don't you have to know what you're up against? How do you fight an enemy that you haven't defined explicitly? And I'll give you even an example in a small thing. Because I think this speaks to a larger, deeper issue that I think I want to get into with you, which is we all look at, oh, why did the Democrats fall flat? Why is it, oh, Joe Biden got out too late or Kamala Harris didn't have a time or she,

you know, whatever that was. But I think at its base level, it was a feeling that government is not being responsive to the discomfort of its people, right? Which breeds a certain feeling that there's this disconnect. And so we have to be able to define why. And I would put this into kind of a unifying theme of governance, which is for the Democrats, oftentimes they're so analog,

they're so tied to Robert's Rules of Order, and they haven't realized like, oh, it's fucking UFC out there now. Yep. And we have to switch the way, but then you also have to define what that's going to mean for how you govern and what you're going to do. Yeah. Would that make sense?

I mean, I think so. I'm, well, you're kind of free to the choir here. That's why I had you on. Because I believe that we need to be a party of brawlers for the working class. There you go. And we have turned into a party that caters, and this is reflected in the electoral results, we have become a party of people who cater to this, like almost people who call themselves upper middle class,

but they're actually like kind of wealthy. And so that's a very- You're talking about me now, aren't you? No, no, you're not middle class at all. No, I meant wealthy. That's what I meant. But it's like this suburban kind of thing. And we've been chasing this affluent group

and making all of these little concessions and hoping working people don't notice. How does that manifest? If you could give us an example of what those concessions might look like. So how in a practical way when you're chasing a different group, because in my mind, look, one of the biggest issues

in my mind is over the last 40 or 50 years, labor has been devalued and capital has been elevated. So investment and finance is king and labor is in many ways devalued. So in what way have you seen those kinds of moves made? Yeah, I mean, I think the most kind of famous one that comes to mind is Kirsten Sinema doing her little curtsy when she voted down

the $15 minimum wage, but it wasn't just her. There were, like that was the most public expression of it, the $15 minimum wage. But it wasn't just her. That was the most public expression of it, but there were a bunch of Democrats in the Senate behind her that also voted it down. And I mean, people are struggling so much right now. 15 bucks an hour is nothing. This was the demand 10 years ago. To be honest, when you index it, it should be higher now. And it is nothing. And what people hear when there's all of these senators voting against it, with all of these excuses of like, oh,

well, how is it going to impact business? And first of all, these laws are very thoroughly, there's already a dozens of compromises before you even get to the floor. It's not like it turns on the next day. Like there's amazing periods, all this stuff. And how do those compromises occur? Are those placed in because of who has the ear of the congressional people, the Senate and the House. This is the effect of big money and lobbying. Yes?

Absolutely. Absolutely. It's really interesting. So you kind of mentioned this oversight race. So I didn't win the race. But one thing that did happen is that I've moved, I've been assigned to a very powerful committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee. And they're kind of known as one of four money committees

in Congress. They can do the appropriating or they're just as a part of it because it's not the appropriations, but it's- Yeah, so the four committees are financial services, that's kind of governs Wall Street. You've got ways and means, which is taxes. You have appropriations, which is like government financing, all these programs. And then you have energy and commerce. So basically all of the regulation of energy, of healthcare, of tech, of all of it goes through this committee. And I've served in several other committees before.

And I've served in several other committees before. The day that the news came out that I got assigned to Energy and Commerce, my staff's email boxes blew up with lobbyists, just tons of lobbyists, just flooding our emails. Wow. And it is literally because of this assignment that I got. Like, hey man, what's up? Like, what kind of, was it like,

hey, what's up, Congresswoman? It's very like, hello fellow kids. Like, oh, I was at the Bernie rally, like back in the day. Like, I'd love to chat. And the thing is, is like, I am afforded because I am supported by everyday people. Like the average donation to my campaign is like 17 bucks or something like that. I don't take a dime of lobbyist money. Because I am afforded that independence, because everyday people support me. I don't have to, I'm under no pressure

or obligation to take a single one of these meetings, not one. And I don't meet with lobbyists. It's just not really something that I do. And if my constituents or if everyday people are organizing and coming to my door, I'll open it. If I have policy, you know, like I will go and find the answers that I need for certain things, but I don't make these kinds of decisions,

but these compromises that you mentioned, how they happen along the way, it is important for people to understand how Congress is structured. Like every bill that gets proposed gets assigned to a committee. That committee has a chair. That chair is the head honcho. And especially in the House, it's all or nothing.

I mean, like, even if you have a one seat majority, you control all the business that goes through that committee. That's right. And people don't really, like, know that. But if you have, you know, two, like, for example, this majority right now, especially because Trump is appointing some people, there's only two more Republicans or so right now

in the House than there are Democrats. But if you just have one more or two more, you gain control of all the House committees, you decide what legislation gets voted on, you do all of it. Who gets investigated, who's allowed to call witnesses, what those witnesses are. I mean, you control the entire operation.

Yeah, and the minority party just has to basically sit there for two years, and maybe you can rename a post office if a Republican's going to throw you a bone. But like, you know, it's pretty limited. And so that's how those compromises happen, because you need to win that vote. You know, it's pretty limited. And so that's how those compromises happen because you need to win that vote.

Like I think about back when Biden was trying to do Build Back Better and we had these like, we had this massive prescription drug pricing provision in there that was gonna make so many prescriptions more affordable for people. And there was like one Democrat, and that bill went through energy and commerce. There was like one Democrat, maybe two,

very beholden to industry. It lost by one vote or it lost by one or two votes in that committee. And so that's how like all of these things get slowly chipped away because of that process. And that's why one of the things that we say is like, yes, voting for democratic majorities is important, but it's really about the kind of Democrat that you're sending. And one of the things I've learned

a lot in the house is like, you know, there's so many frustrations, understandably, but also the popularity of Congress is super low, but a lot of people actually like their individual member of Congress. And that's part of the story that we have here too, because a lot of people are just very, they're very beholden to a set of incentives that are not always just the people who voted for them. Right. And the people who voted for them rarely get the access. You know, I thought it was a stark moment at the inauguration yesterday. Amy Klobuchar was up and, you know, she gave that first speech and it began with this sort of ode to the working man. Oh, the working man.

The construction workers who built this city, the railroad engineers, you know, and it was this large ode to the working man. Not one of them in the room. Literally. Not even allowed in. And you've got like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos and the TikTok CEO right behind you.

Yeah, no, it's like, what are we doing here? But it makes it seem like a performance. This is why I think people lose that faith. And I think that ultimately this idea that, well, you know people just need to have better unions and they do like, why do, why is it incumbent upon working people? You know, maybe this is a shift and maybe this is an interesting way to kind of talk

about where did the Democrats go ideologically, right? Because this fire hose of kind of oligarch isn't going to be ending. And it seems like unionization, while a really powerful tool, is a slow moving one and certainly one that's been eroded, is maybe the new economic theory a way to tap into that fire hose? That money is built by labor, but labor does not participate like a shareholder. Is there a way,

and this is obviously beyond my pay grade, but to start shifting the conversation beyond like, hey, man, just give us a minimum wage raise and start to think about the ways that the CEOs and these oligarchs are remunerated, right? It's bonuses, it's stock buybacks, it's... So how do we get labor to not just live on the crumbs that they are afforded, but to participate in that fire hose, that $50 trillion growth in wealth over these last four years. I mean, there are tons of structural things that we can do.

And there are lots and lots of ways to get a bite at that apple. I think the crux, kind of the knot that we have to untie is how do we build the power to actually implement those things? When it comes to labor getting that share, that's not a hard problem to solve. There are everything from Elizabeth Warren and a lot of other folks saying labor should have board seats in corporations to even more like more lefty even I mean it's all lefty but even like other things but why is it like even when it's called lefty like in the rest of the world it's normal it's like center right yeah like it's normal it's the idea you know when we talk about oh how about everybody like can go to a doctor and you's normal. It's the idea, you know, when we talk about,

oh, how about everybody like can go to a doctor and you're like, what are you a communist? And you're like, no fucking, that's the whole world does that. Well, that's the thing. Except us. Our country is remarkably propagandized. Like we are remarkably propagandized.

And that's what I'm talking about when, you know, when it talks about building the power, working, a lot of working class people voted for Donald Trump. Sure. I mean, he gained a tremendous amount in that area. He gained a tremendous amount in that area. They voted for him despite the fact that he has a Supreme Court that guts labor rights, that they are overwhelmingly opposed to raising a minimum wage, that they are really, that they're gutting the civil rights around working people and organizing, let alone women and voting rights and for black folks and immigrant. Put all of that aside,

just on a working class level, we have elected the Foxes for the hen house to run the hen house. And so that is like something that we're going to have to confront because what Zuckerberg and Bezos and all these people sitting behind them, they don't just represent billionaires. They represent all of the communication platforms that people use in the United States. So the TikTok CEO is saying, we work for Trump. The face meta Instagram and Facebook CEO is saying, we work for Trump. Of course, you've got Elon with his fucking like jumping around on a stage. Just gave away a million dollars to individuals in Pennsylvania.

Yeah, which is like not legal, but. Right, but isn't isn't that the point though? They would rather ask for forgiveness than permission. And isn't a lot of this based on, you know, we say it's the fox is now guarding the henhouse. But isn't it the people in the henhouse going, where are my eggs? Yeah, you promised me eggs and you guys haven't delivered. Yes. We're going to take a quick break. Be right back. We are back. Now you did something really interesting, I thought, after the election.

And this is, I think, why I think the right gives you respect. And also, I think, is a little trepidatious about you in that you kind of understand these new media platforms and you went on one of them, and it was either TikTok or Instagram or one after the election because you outperformed the Democrats in your district. And there were people that voted for you and voted for Trump and you wanted to know why.

And in doing that, what came back to you? Was it anything revelatory or illuminating about the process by which their frustration with people that are speaking the language of their struggle, but not delivering on their struggle, led them to, well, you know what? Fuck it. Let's just cut through all the red tape and go with a more executive version of all of this. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a couple of things. One is that, especially for people who voted for Trump and voted for me, they see two people that are fundamentally anti-establishment,

two people that do not respect a rule if the rule does not lead to an outcome, like a positive outcome. And I mean, it's one of the things that I really kind of sit with is, I think a shift that we've seen is that people wanna hear directly from a politician. And importantly, and this is also, you know,

dicey territory, I think, they will believe what the politician says from themselves, right? If they hear it from you. If they hear it from me, and the same thing, like if they hear it from Trump, like Trump went around. I don't think people understandably, like if you don't like Trump, you probably didn't listen to him on the campaign trail.

But this was a very different Trump that was on the campaign trail. And if even if you roll back his election night speech and his victory speech, when he talks about immigration, for example, my district is like 60% immigrant families. And so when you hear him, he was very clear on the campaign trail saying, we're only going to go after the criminals and we're not going to go after people who came here the right way. And he is lying through his teeth, but that is what he is saying.

And so people believe it. It's the same thing with the Project 2025 stuff. When he was like, that's not me. We're not gonna do that. People will say, he said it's not him. He said he's only gonna go after the quote unquote criminals, which like, they believe everyone who came here who is undocumented is a criminal. Like, and not only that, but on paper,

they say they wanna deport 20 million people. There's only 14 million undocumented people in the United States. So they're gonna have to proactively strip status from 6 million people who are here legally and in a legal fashion in order to meet that number. But the thing is, and so this is actually where I think the collapse of journalism, which

again, Bezos runs the post, you've got the newspapers to the guy, the guy from the LA Times was like, Hey, man, what do you guys what do you guys want us to put in the paper? Yeah, LA Times is a billionaire publication. Washington Post was a billionaire publication. New York Times is like taking L's left and right. You have Elon doing a Nazi salute yesterday and they're like, hmm, he- That was weird.

He did this curious, that was controversial flagellation. What are you people doing? What utility do you have right now? It's all of this stuff that is that is meshing together. But the but the point is, is like, this is not all doom and gloom. I think that it highlights ways that we can fight back. And one of the things that we need to do is to talk to people directly. Also, guess what? There need to be Democrats who walk the walk and talk the talk. There is an insane amount of hypocrisy and the hypocrisy is where, the hypocrisy is what gets exploited to use the cynicism. And wherever there's a hypocritical window, for example, I think one of the most biggest examples of this is insider trading in Congress. Like, dude, I don't know.

I like, I don't know if I like, do I give snaps? Do I, I don't know what the kids do anymore, but like, dude, it's yes. It is. That's so crazy. It's so crazy. It's crazy. I mean, like that's the, and this is the thing.

It's like, like people think that everyday people are stupid. Like, do we do, I'm like, do, do you all really think that people don't see this shit? Like they sit on a committee, they get information about a drug or a contract or a thing. They immediately make a call. The stockbroker changes things and, and their portfolio swells.

Explodes. It explodes. What are we doing? And you're doing this on public trust. Right. On like taxpayer finance, public facilities. Like it, of course. You're regulating the market that you're trading on. Exactly. You run the casino.

And then we're supposed to act like money only corrupts Republicans? Give me a fucking break. So to me, this is important because- We're lucky we're not in the same room because I think we might have high-fived. I really think we may have disturbingly high-fived in that moment. And I think sometimes what my colleagues and like, you know, other people in the party don't understand is that the insider trading that happens in Congress, it explodes the cynicism that fuels the right. It doesn't benefit us.

It benefits Republicans because they make no bones about the fact that they are here, about what class they are here to serve. In fact, Republicans are far more honest in this respect sometimes, which is that they're here to serve the billionaire class and they make decisions very publicly to serve that billionaire class.

Oh, but they're performing a populist dance in a lot of ways. But doesn't it, though? You know, and this is the thing where it kind of gets tricky because what the rights diagnosis is, is in many ways correct. What Trump is saying is the system is rigged. Well, that's I think that's what what we're saying, which is, yeah, it's rigged. Now, I don't believe his remedy is correct. I don't believe he's honest about where he's unrigging it.

I think he's not draining the swamp. He's co-opting it. He wants the deed to the swamp so that he can continue to funnel. I mean, that meme coin being just the tip of the iceberg there. But isn't that what is driving them? Is that sense that, and they are, I think, not wrong. The system is rigged. Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's completely rigged. And the frustrations at that are why working people want to elect people who seek to not, you know, go along to get along. But the question is, they're viewing it like, oh, it's the undocumented migrants that are rigging the system and not the six billionaire oligarchs that are sitting in the front row at the inauguration. To me, that's the disconnect. That's exactly right.

And like the thing is, is when we talk about solidarity, the reason why solidarity is when we build that is such an antidote to kleptocracy and corruption. I think something that's really important for people to understand, and that's something that I also think the left can do a better job at, is also explaining why this solidarity is important, not just on moral grounds, but this is our strategy for defeating the billionaire class because they are going to say, your wages are low because of an immigrant. By the way, oh, you're going to drive down, wait until there's no immigrants to do your roofing, to do agricultural work in the United States, and you're gonna have some like UCLA alum

that's doing your vegetables. There are people here in this country who will do work for money that Americans won't do work for, who are exploited by the system. They are exploited, They are absolutely exploited. But the thing is that when we allow ourselves to constantly be distracted by these culture wars around trans people, around, it's a new thing every day.

But I think the answer isn't that we just let those people be attacked. It's that we say, what are you doing, man? I think we need to make standing up for these folks just such an afterthought that it's not even a debate. We need to understand and see the bait for what it is, but we don't take the bait by letting those rights just erode and go by the wayside. But how do you battle certain, like the common sense? I'll give you an example. When they say, oh, there's an undocumented immigrant who has committed a crime.

Common sense would tell you, yeah, that person has lost their ability to be here and should be sent back. And yet you would find there are some Democrats who would disagree with that. Or, you know, isn't there another form of progressivism that is more muscular, that has a certain amount of common sense, law and order aspect to it,

that can be fashioned as a way forward? That doesn't get saddled with some of these seemingly nonsensical positions. Yeah, well, let's take the Lake and Riley Act, for example, which just passed in the Senate, which is, this kind of encapsulates a lot of what you just said. Lake and Riley Act, on its face,

Republicans brought this and they say, well, you know, if you are, by the way, Lake and Riley is a victim of a horrific crime. It was horrible. Horrible murder by some, by I believe an asylum seeker or an undocumented person. Right, but apparently who had like a criminal record. Yes, who had a criminal record.

Who had committed crimes. Now, first and foremost, her family explicitly asked that her name not be politicized or used or wielded in this way. And every time I see this, it's just so disgusting to me that they just trampled on this family's wishes and decided to do this. But anyways, so you have this act that's brought forth and Republicans say, okay, well, this person, if you have a criminal record,

if you've, you know, sexually assaulted somebody, you know, you should be deported. And so that's the guise of this bill, right? And they said, so that should be the law, except that's not what's in this law, because A, that is existing US law. It is existing US law. It is existing US law. Why isn't it done then?

And well, I mean, I think there are individual cases where I'm not sure, but this is what the right does. They exploit these like very narrow individual cases, but the existing law in the United States is that if you are undocumented and you commit a crime, you are put on priority number one for deportation, that is standing US law. Right, and it's not like we don't deport a lot of people

even in democratic administrations, we deport a ton. Now here's what Lake and Riley does actually, is that they use that guise to then dramatically erode constitutional rights in the United States tucked into that bill. So now- No due process then for someone who is an asylum seeker. That's right. Okay.

So now in this bill, all you need to do is be accused of a crime and you don't have to be fully undocumented. It works against dreamers too. So you could be here, You could have lawful, you know. So they take a narrow common sense issue and then what they do is they expand the margins out on it to things that would not be common sense. Yeah, this is Patriot Act all over again.

Right. This is. Mission Creek. Exactly. Using this guise of national security to erode not just the civil rights of this population, but your civil rights too. And it makes us all, it's kind of like when

they did these 100 mile border security zones, they're doing surveillance on everybody, on the vast majority of the United States. Because most people, believe it or not, live within 100 miles of some kind of border. The southern border, the northern border, or both either coast. Oh, I got Delaware breathing down my neck over here. Yeah. I don't know what they're sending up my way.

And so like, this is the thing that, you know, this is the thing that we need to be aware of. But it's also something that you haven't heard this because Democrats are very scared on these kinds of issues. Democrats are vulnerable on issues of immigration and so the response instead of being more full-throated and telling people how they're being conned is to kind of just like be quiet about it and to go along with it. So let's take let's take your energy, let's take the passion that you have with these issues and let's think about because right now the Democrats are almost fully defined by their positions on Trump as opposed to, you know, people are thirsty for a leadership and the Democrats I think have had a really difficult time responding to that thirst,

responding to that action. So what is the process then of redefining what this party is, what it represents moving forward and are there leaders there? It is sclerotic. I mean, it is a party in real confusion. And I don't know, I can't put my finger on. It reminds me of the Republicans in 2012, where there was just,

when Trump came into that first 2016 primary, I mean, he just like flicking his finger, not Jeb Bush. Yeah, nice, boom, done. Like, and I think the Democrats are vulnerable to that. So how what is the process of redefining and recapturing what this party is? Well, I think we need a real agenda. If you've noticed the Democratic Party has not really had a platform with any sort of new... I have noticed.

Yeah. There's no platform. I mean, there's technically a platform that gets voted out. This is the crux of it. If you ask a working class American or just any normal American, what is a Democrat? What do they stand for? They will not really be able to give you a clear answer. Our party needs a clear and strong agenda. I think one of the problems is that the internal incentives within the Democratic Party are quite contrary to a clear, full-throated agenda. And that's why I think you notice like Biden on his way out,

it was only on his way out that he was like, this country is controlled by oligarchs by like, we couldn't use that energy a couple years ago. Well, I mean, what he did on the way out, I really thought it was incredibly disappointing. On the way out, he's like, we're controlled by oligarchs, women are people, and I'm gonna make sure that my family has a life raft.

And I just thought, boy, what a, and I have fondness for him, and he was certainly incredibly important to a bill that was very important to me that went through. But I just thought, again, you just made this whole thing look like a show, like a performance, and that you've been not clear with us over four years. And on your way out, you're just going to tell the truth, which is our legal system doesn't serve anybody. And I'm just going to make sure my family is protected. Yeah. And I think it's one of these things where people, I do think that people want rule breakers

in this moment. Purposeful rule. I think, I don't think we're looking for nihilists. I think we're looking for a purposeful recapturing of the thrust. Does it start, Congresswoman, with what you did, which is kind of a customer service? I think what the democrats have lost is the reality of people's lives. When you think about that cradle to grave journey, and where the bottleneck pressures are that weird working class, middle

class squeeze of I've worked really hard, I've saved some money, but now I got to blow most of it on my kids' college while my parents need healthcare and other things and those costs are soaring. And that's gonna put me under by the time I get up to that age when I'm 60 years old. Isn't that journey the absolute priority of any government that's gonna listen to the discomfort of the way its people live? that journey the absolute priority of any government

that's gonna listen to the discomfort of the way its people live? Of course, of course. This is where I think when you talk about responsiveness, it's that a lot of people propose these things that kind of nibble around the edges, but don't actually structurally address the problem. And so they'll say, okay, we're going to do a little bit of Medicare reform here.

That doesn't fix the problem. That doesn't fix the fact that you aren't paid a living wage from the jump, from the time you're 15 years old getting your first job at McDonald's or Baskin Robbins or wherever it is. We don't have money. We need money. That doesn't solve that problem. It doesn't solve the fact that the price of college is just skyrocketing year over year and it's increasingly becoming something that's only accessible increasingly becoming something that's only accessible for more and more elite people as time goes on. It doesn't fix the fact that then in order to that degree, yes, it still does give you a ticket to a more privileged class. I know there's a lot of discussion about is college worth

and also the trades too. The trades are incredibly important as well. But like these are still like kind of tickets to a more, so people are getting left behind at every single stage of life. And what the democratic response has been is like, oh, let's expand Pell grants a little bit. Or, and no, we need to wish. Or even, you know, the Obamacare, which is in many ways just a giant benefit to insurance companies,

which is the government just saying, we'll give you a little bit of access to this shitty system that you haven't been satisfied with, and we'll just make sure that to get an insurance company to take you on if you're considered a poor risk, we'll just pay them to do that. At the end of the day, like, and the stuff that's crazy to me is like,

the answers are stuff, like we're just asking for things that our parents and our grandparents had. Like, tuition-free public colleges and universities, not new. Not new. That's where my parents went to City College in New York. It was free. Yeah. You know, this was the 1940s, you know, free.

That's right. We should be lowering the age of Medicare. I want the age of Medicare to be lowered to zero, but even you bring it to 50 and you will be able to make tons and tons of people far more secure in their lives, which, by the way, helps their kids because you're working your ass off to get your parents' health care because they're not 65 yet. Now, to make that argument, is Democrat, is job one, then, because they're not 65 yet. Now to make that argument, is job one then

to be honest about the deliverables that a government can offer or about how we need almost, you know, when they talk about moonshots, we need a bureaucratic moonshot because in truth, the way that the government operates right now is counterintuitive and counterfactual. Yeah, all best practices. And, and there is such opportunity here, Congresswoman. I, I feel it in your voice.

I feel the frustration that you feel being down there. Uh, I've experienced it myself. I have to tell you, like, when we were down there trying to, to, to do legislation, I was at times just stunned at the what you had talked about earlier, which is that we have to go through regular order. And it was interesting to me, what I discovered to some respect is, and this is a terrible thing to probably say, but Congress can be bullied. Yeah, no, by righteousness and by doing the right thing. Like

as long as they feel like you're not going to go away and you're going to keep that light on them, Mitch McConnell can be. It's true. Yeah. It's true. It's very strange feeling to have that. And also people are very responsive to incentives. I think sometimes people are, very responsive to incentives. I think sometimes people are rightfully sometimes frustrated at like some of the creep towards pro business and capital and this turn away from labor. And does this system require an entrenched underclass to work properly.

The way I've always looked at it is, you know, government can be an effective check. Capitalism is the system we've chosen and it certainly is a wealth generation system, but it also has collateral damage along the way. It has destructive things that are built into its function and maybe governments there, not necessarily to change that system of wealth

generation, but to ameliorate the collateral damage and allow more people into that fire hose of wealth generation. Yeah, I think that's a very valid question. I think depending on your view of the world, it is government either exists to enforce that system or, and then try to kind of soften the consequences of it. And that is defined by the people that we send to represent us, that outcome. But I do think that people respond

and elected officials respond to those incentives. As you mentioned, not only are they responsive to sunlight, money isn't the only rule here. At the end of the day, people who are in Congress want to return to Congress. And the reason, it's true, and then the reason. And the reason that the Republicans have so much enforcement is because they're more scared of a primary than they

are of a general election. And for multiple reasons. One, their base is highly mobilized. Their base is highly engaged. And so if you can survive a primary, their theory of change is that you will be able, for the most part, be able to survive a general election, which is, I would say, true for maybe 90 to 95% of all seats in Congress. There are very, very few swing seats left in America.

Republicans and this whole system has been gerrymandered that the number of swing seats is so low. So for everybody else, your only election is a primary election. And that's been billionaires fuel and they fund primary challenges. Trump openly talks about that to keep everyone in line. But we all do have a choice. And the more choices we have that are more representative of the changes we want to see, the better off we all are. And we're going to lose a bunch, but we're also going to win a bunch too.

And I will always, always, always believe that it was always worth trying. And in fact, it's so important that we don't give up because people do not. They can't. And no, no, even if you don't see a way because ways emerge, moments emerge. I was not supposed to get elected to Congress by any stretch of the imagination. I was insane. I was a waitress. You rarely hear that from a congressional leader. I was a waitress. You rarely hear that from a congressional leader.

I was insane. No, I mean, it's not just a cute story. I was wiping down a bar and asking people to vote for me. It wasn't just like a summer job I had once. I was not supposed to win. The guy I was running against spent $3 million against me. I was getting like $2 in my paycheck once a week because I was working off tips and they take it all out. But things happen in America. This is still a place of possibility.

But see, you know the promise of the possible, and that's what gives you that feeling that the fight can pay off. But I think for the most part, that fight is you have no other option. You know, we always talk about that idea. You know, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. But what they don't tell you is

it doesn't bend by natural forces. Gravity is not what bends that. And there are people who are bending that fucker back the other way. And it is effort. It is work. And I guess, and I thank you so much for spending the time with us today.

And it's really been a wonderfully invigorating conversation for me to hear your passion and to hear the fight that you have and the direction you're going in. I guess the final question is, how do you feel about the confidence that the Democrats are being, A, honest with themselves about where they actually are, and B, have the vision and wherewithal to begin that process that you're talking about, about redefining it

in a way that's more responsive to the people they purport to represent. Yeah. I mean, I have a weird relationship with the Democratic Party, to say the least. Friends with benefits. Yeah, I get it, I get it. Yeah, exactly.

It's fine. It's kind of like one foot in, one foot out, right? And I think the foot out that I have is the foot that is very attuned to people. And the foot in that I have is, you know, it's still the coalition that helps people in my view. And it's a coalition that we all have to be part of. And so to me, I do think there's, as you mentioned, I do think that there is a little bit

of this lost at sea moment happening. But as you said, I see that not as a reason for despair. I see it as a tremendous opportunity. I've been a wrecking ball in the past. I think that's one of the tool. I believe in the toolbox, right? Sometimes you need a wrecking ball, sometimes you need a hammer, sometimes you need a wrench.

I think in this moment, it's a tremendous window of opportunity for efficacy. And whoever is most effective is where the momentum is going to go. And so, for me, I'm just trying shit out. Like, I'm just trying shit out. And I'm just in the batting cage and I'm just waiting for a dinger. Right. And this is the work. I got to tell you, there are so many metaphors. I don't even know what to do anymore. I've got I've got a tool kit and a batting cage.

And I don't know what the hell's happening. That's what it's going to take just to throw in everything. All those all those different things. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York's 14th district. Thank you so much for spending the time with us today. I really appreciate it. Hope to see you again soon.

Totally, thank you, John. Appreciate it. All right, bye-bye. Fantastic. We are back. We're joined by Lauren Walker, Jillian Spear, Brittany Mametevich. Fantastic, I say.

She's so good. I exclaim. I love her attitude at the end. It's like, get caught stealing, you know, get caught trying, Democrats, please. I really think this time, this time in Congress, she is going to get in a fist fight. And not with a Republican, with another,

I think she's going to deck Steny Hoyer. I think he is going down. She's throwing a roundhouse, and it is over. I love the no wallowing. There was no despair. There was no sense all is lost. There was no sense that it's Sisyphus at the bottom of a mountain. She was all like, let's roll up the sleeves and get in there and make this shit right.

And I think that is exactly the attitude that is missing and necessary. Yes, I loved it. She was like, you never know what opportunities will present themselves. And she's an example of that. Exactly right. If you're turning in for liberal tears, you never know what opportunities will present themselves. And she's an example of that. Exactly. Right. If you're turning in for liberal tears, you know, find another podcast, no liberal

tears here for God's sake. We got, um, we got to listen to your question about, um, they're asking like, John, how do you think the media should effectively cover Trump this time? Uh, first of all, I don't think Trump is a different creature. Like this idea somehow that the media must adopt. Oh, it's Trump. And that's different. Like the media should have a prescribed methodology that can be applied to all who come there.

And what that what that should be is to litigate the boundaries of our shared reality, to stop pretend, we live in separate universes. No, we don't, we live in the universe. We live in the world, there is reality. The media's job is to litigate the boundaries of that shared reality through a process of standards,

of evidentiary truth. That's fucking it. And no more like, is that racist? Will you promise to honor the 2020, the 2020 result? Like litigate the why, litigate the boundaries of our shared reality. And that is how you should cover everything. Preach.

Mic drop. And I ended with this. But you guys are doing good. I'm excited that we're back and we're, we're, we're. We're good. We're not good. I think the Nazi salutes maybe made me wake up on the wrong side of the bed. That was bananas. And it's a, what I love about it is like, there they go again, overreacting.

You're like, it, like you have to admit. you wake up on the wrong side of the bed. That was bananas. And what I love about it is there they go again, overreacting. You have to admit, even if it's the awkwardness of neurodivergence or a thing that always occurs, you have to admit it is worthy of people going, what the fuck was that? Especially coupled with ideological turns that you've very clearly taken.

On your platform, like this all does fit together. It's not like it comes out of nowhere. You know, you didn't like do this like and everybody's like, wow, that looked like he was doing like his own air trombone, like it was what it was. And I think it's very reasonable for any observer to be like, huh, that was fucking weird. But even even the ADL was like, he's a little different. And like what?

Yeah. Fuck those guys anyway. Like they're they're the worst. All these guys have subliminal. I mean, the best one to me is Zuckerberg. For Zuckerberg to show up there, and then he goes on Rogan and he's like, the Biden administration yelled at me and tried to censor me. Trump threatened to put you in jail. He threatened to put you in jail

for doing much less than what Elon did to get Trump elected. He had his democracy project and it turned out more of the money went to democratic states. So he was enemy number one. He became, you know, Soros Jr. at that point. Elon just basically gave a million dollars

to anybody walking by in Pennsylvania. Everybody's like, oh yeah, no, that's cool. That's all fine. And Zuckerberg is pretending that he had a revelation. I had a revelation that the Biden administration wanted to censor. No, you were threatened with jail. And they even asked Trump,

why do you think Zuckerberg came to you hat in hand? And Trump was like, well, I threatened to put him in jail. No. Like. Just call him balls and strikes. Fuck it all. That's all I'm saying.

But I was very happy to talk to the Congresswoman. I'm always very happy to talk to you guys. How else can the people talk to us, Brittany? Twitter, We Are Weekly Show, pod, Instagram, threads, TikTok, and Blue Sky, We Are Weekly Show podcast. And you can like and subscribe our YouTube channel, The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart. Yeah, do that. Yeah. By the way,, the weekly show with Jon Stewart. Yeah, do that.

Yeah. By the way, last week's episode with Jon Meacham, now my mom thinks I'm smart. Oh, it's all been worth it then. She loves Jon Meacham and doesn't particularly care for what I have to say, but the fact that he was on there and didn't call me a dumbass, I have now been elevated. So.

That's amazing for you. Oh, thank you so much. Very, very appreciated. Lead producer, Lauren Walker, producer, Brittany Mametovic, video editor and engineer, Rob Vitola, audio editor and engineer, Nicole Boyce, researcher and associate producer, Jillian Spear.

And of course, our executive producers, Chris McShane, Katie Gray, thank you all so much. And we will see you next week and continue this conversation about America. All right. Talk to you then. Bye, guys. The weekly show with Jon Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast.

It's produced by Paramount Audio and Busboy Productions.