-Our next guest represents
New York's 14th Congressional District
in the House of Representatives. Please welcome back to the show
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Well, it is so lovely to have you here.
-Lovely to be here. Thank you.
-And it seems like we planned this,
but this has been scheduled for a long time.
No one could have imagined a couple of months ago
what happened today. How does this feel?
How are you processing it as a New Yorker?
-Yeah, well, I mean,
there's as an American and as a New Yorker.
As a New Yorker, it was a very New York kind of day.
You have not just what was happening
with former President Trump,
but then you have MTG flying into town.
You've got, you know, just the whole chaos of the scene
and also all the people walking by like,
"Okay. I'm on my lunch break. It's time to go."
-Yeah. -It's -- You know --
It was -- It was just a lot. It was a circus, right?
-I mean, your whole life, this is a person who,
especially in New York, has been investigated,
never charged.
Multiple -- certainly accusations
of financial improprieties.
Did you ever think this day would come
where he would be arraigned,
especially for things like, you know, the misuse of money?
-Yeah, I mean, I --
I think I had always felt that something might happen.
Honestly, I think if something did,
I would have thought it would be something like this,
around falsification of business documents or some sort of charge
that has to do with documentation or finances.
But, I mean, my dad was an architect.
He worked in construction and in that industry.
And from the time I was a kid,
it's like no one knew this guy better than New Yorkers.
And just, like, this is just --
People would have thought
this is what he would have been in for
before he was president. -Yeah.
-So, you know, I think it does feel like a matter of course.
I also think that -- I mean, listen.
This is not about guaranteeing one outcome or another.
This is about due process, and the lack of process of,
I think, a formal due process for so long
really created this question of,
do we really have an equal society,
no matter your income, no matter how powerful you are?
And I think the presence of this process demonstrates
that we should have one law that applies to all people,
no matter who you are or where you come from.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-A very true statement.
And also, look. This is the process.
He's innocent until proven guilty.
And you were talking a little backstage
about how there is oftentimes a hesitation,
both in legal circles and in politics,
not to move forward unless you're certain of the outcome.
-Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
And I think -- I do. I see this in a legislative context.
Sometimes you see this in a legal context,
which is we don't want to try
unless we know what the outcome is before we start, right?
We don't want to hold a vote on something
unless we know for sure that it's going to pass.
We know that -- You know, the question.
There's been so much legal speculation over the last week.
Is this a good idea? Is it not a good idea?
If we -- If there is evidence for a crime,
which is what Alvin Bragg has asserted,
and put before a grand jury
and before a jury of one's peers,
they themselves move forward with an indictment,
then this is the process that must happen in our society.
And then, once again, there will be another jury
of their peers to convict or acquit.
But we should not make these decisions
solely on whether you know that you're guaranteed
to be successful from the start.
I think people need to see these charges
or see just charges where there is evidence for it.
And I believe that, you know, the presence of that due process
is what makes our system fair.
It's a consequence in and of itself.
And I think it's important. I just think it's important.
-You mentioned Alvin Bragg.
Three GOP House chairs basically wrote to him
demanding that he come and testify,
that he bring documents from this investigation.
It seems like the office hit back pretty strongly to that.
How do you feel about sort of the members of Congress
reaching out and trying to interfere
in an investigation like this? -Yeah, I mean,
I think what they've attempted to do,
whether it's Jim Jordan
or Chairman Comer in House Oversight,
where I sit, there needs to be clear jurisdiction.
And what we have seen from House Republicans especially
is that they seem to have interpreted their role
as just defending and working for Donald Trump,
sometimes more than working for the kinds of people
that they've been elected to serve.
You know, we're seeing more energy for defending
former President Trump than for passing gun-safety legislation,
from helping health care, from people in, you know --
from what happened in the spill in, you know --
I think what we need to see
is an actual government that works for people,
no matter what party you're a part of,
instead of which partisan person you're most loyal to.
-I think that's -- They should also know...
[ Applause ]
When you work for Donald Trump, you often don't get paid.
And that's something they should keep in mind.
You questioned Michael Cohen. This was a few years back.
This was your first year. You were a freshman congresswoman.
And you talked to him about the inflation of assets.
This was a different thing that Donald Trump did for years.
He would -- Basically, if he was counting it as an asset,
he would say it was worth this much.
And if he was paying taxes on it, he would maybe lower it.
And this actually led -- Tish James has mentioned you
and mentioned that questioning as leading
to a separate civil case against Donald Trump.
It's so interesting because I feel like a lot of times
you watch people grandstand in moments
where they get to question someone.
You laid out -- very simple, in a way
that people like even I could understand.
Do you feel like people in Congress
miss the opportunity to take their time
and lay something out very clearly
for the American people to understand?
-Yeah, you know, I, um -- I actually recently --
So, my first year,
I also held this kind of Twitter seminar
for some of my colleagues.
And this year, I worked with some of my other colleagues,
including folks like Maxine Waters and Madeleine Dean
on also kind of teaching folks
how to use your five minutes most effectively.
I think, you know -- When we talk about
what your member of Congress does,
it's not just legislate.
Our job is to investigate.
And that is a core element of our duties, to pursue that.
And so I do think -- It takes a lot of preparation.
It's kind of like what Mark Twain said.
"This letter would be shorter, but I didn't have time."
That brevity takes an enormous amount of preparation.
I kind of look like that scene
from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia"
with the guy like this.
-All the yarn connecting... -All the yarn.
That's what my desk looks like during a hearing sometimes.
You have to work with what's happening midstream.
But I think it's very powerful. It's really important.
And our job is to educate and communicate to the public,
in addition to legislating.
-I want to talk about other legislation you're working on.
Before we go to commercial,
Trump was supposedly stuck on FDR after the arraignment today.
Is that the most perfect New York punishment for...?
-Okay. I have to take issue
because I represent LaGuardia Airport.
-I told you. It's nice now. -Okay?
-I told you. It's nice now.
-We put a lot of work into that.
-And I'm telling you. It is great.
I'm a huge fan of LaGuardia now.
It's just hard for us as comedy writers. You took someth--
This would be like if the Mets won the World Series.
-I know. -What would we do?
-I know. What would we joke about?
What I will say is that I do think it was an omen
that he landed in my congressional district.
-[ Laughs ] Yeah. I think -- -Show him who's boss!
-There you go.
We'll be right back with more from Congresswoman
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.