January 6, 2019

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Donald Trump Is Most Definitely a Racist

Anderson Cooper: “How can you say that?”

CBS

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In a 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper on Sunday evening, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 29-year-old democratic socialist from New York who, along with all other new members of Congress, was sworn in on January 3, said President Donald Trump is a racist, “no question.”

Cooper played it straight. “How can you say that?” he replied.

“When you look at the words that he uses, which are historic dog whistles of white supremacy,” she said, “when you look at how he reacted to the Charlottesville incident, where neo-Nazis murdered a woman, versus how he manufactures crises like immigrants seeking legal refuge on our borders, it’s—it’s night and day.”

Ocasio-Cortez also said her idea of “socialist” policies resembles “what we see in the UK, in Norway, in Finland, in Sweden,” not places like the Soviet Union, Cuba, or Venezuela, which Trump and others cite to bash her. And Democrats, she said, have compromised too much in the past.

A clip from Sunday’s interview, in which Ocasio-Cortez suggested the idea of high marginal tax rates on the super-rich, went viral earlier this week. “When you have a progressive tax rate system, your tax rate, you know, let’s say, from zero to $75,000 [is] maybe 10 percent or 15 percent, etc.,” she said. “But once you get to, like, the tippy tops—on your 10 millionth dollar—sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60 or 70 percent. That doesn’t mean all $10 million are taxed at an extremely high rate, but it means that as you climb up this ladder, you should be contributing more.”

Also this week, Ocasio-Cortez adeptly parried criticism from Republicans, including GOP campaign consultant Ed Rollins, who on Friday called her “the little girl” on Fox Business’ Lou Dobbs Tonight show. And after a Twitter user, with the intention of embarrassing her, surfaced a video of Ocasio-Cortez dancing on a rooftop during her college days, she responded with a new video.

Watch the full 60 Minutes interview here:

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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