Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made her debut on Rachel Maddow's show tonight with her cable news reaction to Donald Trump's Oval Office sniff-fest. She was fiery.
After discussing the fact that the shutdown means they can't get laptops to her staffers in the Bronx and Queens to serve constituents, she also ticked off other people being harmed by the shutdown: People applying for mortgages,
"We cannot get casework started because the President decided to hold the paychecks of everyday Americans hostage so that he can fulfill a campaign -- I can't call it a campaign -- a fantasy," she told Maddow. "Not only that, but in the actual address there was falsehood after falsehood and we have to make sure we get the facts straight."
Why yes we do, and who better than AOC to do that? "Every day immigrants commit crimes at a far lower rate than native-born Americans and not only that but the women and children on the border seeking refuge and opportunity in the uUnited states of America with nothing but the shirt on their backs are acting more American than any person who seeks to keep them out ever will be."
Amen to that, AOC. Amen.
Rachel then asked her about Trump's lies about immigrant crime, and his characterization of immigrants as violent. Note: It almost seemed like he was aroused by the violence porn he recited in his address.
AOC was unfazed, noting Trump "has a proven track record of discrimination against anybody that's not white in the United States." She also pointed out the lawsuit reaching back to the Nixon administration for not renting to Black Americans, and how that's entirely consistent with who he is.
She closes with a touching account of what happened in her own district when Trump started going on about immigrants, how utterly terrified they were, and how they "started to send themselves home."
It's heartbreaking and touching. Ocasio-Cortez is a great messenger for those of us who aren't afraid of people who aren't white, like Trump is. We're not weak and we're not living in a state of fear that some brown person might seek and get asylum in this country and become a part of the fabric of our United States.
"We're talking about shuttering neighborhoods," she said. "We're talking about people feeling unsafe. And no one should feel unsafe in the United States of America. And that includes our amazing and beautiful and productive immigrant community," she told Rachel.
She took viewers to church. Watch the video above, from The Rachel Maddow Show.
