>> We'll stay focused on our agenda.
And we won't get caught slipping.
>> That's Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a press conference just yesterday.
Where the freshman Congresswomen got together and not only discussed and condemned Trump's
racism and how he targeted them and told them to go back to the countries they came from,
even though three out of four were actually born here in the United States.
They used it as an opportunity to talk about what their objectives are, what they plan
on doing as progressive members of Congress.
Let's take a look.
>> I am not surprised that he uses the rhetoric that he does.
But he violates international human rights, and takes thousands of children away from
their families.
I am not surprised that he has turned our public education system under the leadership
of Betsy DeVos into a cash cow to enrich himself and his friends.
I'm not surprised when he corrupts via the Secretary of Transportation.
I'm not surprised at what he's doing.
But I also know that we're focused on making it better.
Because we don't leave the things that we love.
And when we love this country, what that means is that we propose the solutions to fix it.
We love all people in this country, and that's why we believe healthcare is a human right.
We love all children in this country, and because we do, that's why we fight for education
for all children, through college.
And so we'll stay focused on our agenda and we won't get caught slipping.
>> So as you can see, she brought up a number of policy issues that they've been working
pretty hard on, including healthcare, Medicare for all specifically, and education.
Free college education.
And doing something about student loan debt.
So I love the fact that they used this as an opportunity to talk about what really matters.
And that is what their plan is to improve the conditions under which Americans are living
in today.
>> I cried when I saw that, I mean, AOC starts off talking about her dad.
He talks about the Reflecting Pool, and it brought back all the memories of when I saw
Knock Down the House.
It is so moving, it is so refreshing after almost three years of this administration.
To have never seen the kind of poised but progressive leadership that you’re seeing
from these four women and others, and finally, we’re getting it.
Trump has been calling the Democrats the opposition party for so long.
We haven't acted like it.
So whoever misses Pelosi, excuse me Freudian slip.
Whoever misses Pelosi and Schumer just standing there sort of dead eyed as they’re like,
we think this president, he’s bad.
We’re beyond calling him racist.
These four have known, and we’ve all known, that Trump is a racist, he ran on a racist
agenda in addition to a lot of other things.
But now it's time, and it's been time to articulate a vision cuz Trump has a vision.
It is a dystopian nightmare of xenophobia and concentration camps.
But what is the counter vision?
And these four are leading the way.
>> I- >> Yeah, no, no, yeah, go ahead.
>> No, yeah, I thought that was nice.
I thought that was powerful.
My thought always kept going to, at what point, they're all, I wanted to be in the room when
they're having the conversations planning this.
This created, unfortunately it happened, and created a moment where they could turn around
and have an even bigger space and platform for what they want to say.
What they want people to hear from them.
And it backfired on Trump a little bit.
>> Yeah, I think it did backfire on Trump.
Now keep in mind, his whole strategy is to make these women the face of Democratic Party.
And so the way that he's kind of calculating this.
And it's funny to say that Trump calculates anything, but I would assume his advisers
are calculating this as well.
They're extreme and if you attack them, maybe there was some hope that Nancy Pelosi and
Chuck Schumer and establishment Democrats would come out in support of these freshmen
lawmakers.
And honestly, to my surprise, they have come out in support.
Now, this all happened in the middle of Democratic Party infighting, so I was uncertain whether
or not Pelosi would be as straightforward, as she has been, to give her credit, in defending
these women.
But in defending them, Trump is going to paint the entire Democratic Party as extreme.
And notice that they’ve shifted away from calling these women socialists, and now they
specifically refer to them as communists, right?
And I think that that’s an important thing to point out, because socialist isn't really
a dirty word among young people in the electorate, right?
And I think even for some middle-aged individuals, they don't really think it's that big of a
deal either.
So they wanna make it sound even more extreme by using the word communist.
Now, of course, these women are not communists.
I mean, far from it.
But nonetheless- >> Break out the C-word whenever you're in
trouble, right?
>> With both, right?
Also, it's great, it digs even deeper into the age of Trump voters.
Which, I don't even know who those, I don't even know who Trump voters, or Trump's base
is anymore, I think we're gonna get to that.
But at this point, communist is just like well, you know what?
Let's just break it out.
Who knows?
Let's dust off this word that we haven't used against activists or organizers.
>> You know what I'm saying.
>> Yeah, yeah.
So let's go ahead and watch Representative Ilhan Omar.
She also had a portion of this press conference that was really powerful especially the way
that she compiled all the different examples of the terrible things that Trump has either
said or done.
>> This is a president who has said, grab women by the.
This is the president who's called black athletes sons of bitches.
This is a President who has called black people who come from black and brown countries.
This is a president who has equated neo Nazis with those who protest against them in Charlottesville.
This is a president who has openly violated the very value our country aspires to uphold.
Equality under the law, religious liberty, equal protection, and protection from persecution.
And to distract from that, he's launching a blatantly racist attack on four duly elected
members of the United States of House of Representatives, all of whom are women of color.
This is the agenda of white nationalist.
Whether it is happening in chat rooms, or it's happening on national TV, and now it's
reached the White House garden.
>> So she's pretty clear, and I love the fact that she called Trump out by giving specific
examples.
Because what the right wing will typically do is they'll respond to accusations of racism
by pretending as if there aren't specific examples.
But there are so many when it comes to Trump, so call it what it is.
It's racism, Trump is racist.
That was the whole core of his entire presidential campaign and now his administration.
>> Something about Representative Omar is just always going to be so powerful to me,
just that piece right there, her accent, what she’s wearing, her skin, just what she looks
like.
Just by being there, being who she is, is so important.
And it's so anti Trump.
Representation matters, so just by looking like she looks and speaking, how she speaks,
it's a special type of importance for so many people who look like her.
But then for everyone just that represents, she's representing our country right now.
And I think that's amazing.
And just speaking, being in that space I think, that he hates that.
>> Yeah, definitely.
>> And calling it, I mean I think at this point, I'm sort of tired of the word racism.
I'm just kinda like, yeah, we know he's racist.
I think what we saw yesterday and the last couple days, as we saw after Charlottesville,
which is what Ilhan Omar is referring to, is that he is a white nationalist.
He has not renounced white nationalism.
Okay, let's say maybe he's not.
But he's given every opportunity, whether it's David Duke supporting him via tweet,
whether it's the Charlottesville alt-right protesters, Unite the Right protesters.
Or whether it's now, when he was explicitly asked, what do you say to white nationalists
who really love the tweet that you sent out about calling these representatives, telling
them to go back to their countries?
Nothing on that.
So we tee him up, and time again, he basically is not giving us any evidence to the contrary,
so it's beyond racism.
It's, no, no, no, you believe in white nationalism, and I think that, again, with Pelosi tweeting
that Make America Great Again has always meant Make America White Again.
Good, hon, but you're a little late to the party.
And to me, the right hates these four women for this one particular reason, is because
they fight back.
They don't care about pleasing Trump, they don't care about bipartisanship, they don't
care.
They're gonna agree to open the government or keep whatever agreement, they don't care
that Trump quote unquote likes them, as Chuck Schumer once said.
They care about having a progressive agenda, and they care about standing up to him.
>> Exactly, so in response to this, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy denied that
there's any issue with racism in the GOP, particularly in Trump's administration, and
went after these freshmen Congresswomen even more aggressively.
Take a look.
>> I understand when I listened to their press conference yesterday, they talked more about
impeachment than anything else.
Even one of those individuals, this wasn't the first time they talked about impeachment.
On the night of being sworn in, they brought all their supporters together.
And they spoke about impeachment in words that I will not use here.
This is more from their basis about politics.
>> It is incredible how he's making this big to do about profanity, and he's referencing
Representative Tlaib, and how she said impeach the mother-F-er, there was this whole brouhaha
about that.
I mean, you wanna talk about profanity, Trump has used profanity over and over again, to
the point where members of the GOP, I think just members of Congress overall, are emboldened
to use profanity when they wouldn't have before.
>> Sure.
>> And they didn't just talk about impeachment.
I mean, that was a small portion of the press conference.
It's interesting how he didn't bring up their policy proposals.
He didn't bring up the fact that they're drawing attention to student loan debt, or that they're
drawing attention to how our healthcare system is broken.
Republicans fought tooth and nail to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they had how long
to do that, since 2009?
And have they provided any other replacement strategy, or replacement for the Affordable
Care Act?
No, I mean, the one replacement that they showed us was a disaster.
>> So bad that members of their own party voted against it.
>> So anyway, I just think it's interesting how the GOP strategy is to deflect, and luckily
we have at least four members of Congress right now who are willing to fight back.
>> His defense is that it's about politics.
When the President of the United States says something racist, which, sure, by definition
it's about politics because he's the President.
Okay, let's move on from that and they all, I've heard a lot of it, this is about politics,
this is politically, the President said it.
Of course it's about politics.
There's more to it, but of course it's about politics.
>> Yeah, they do that to demonize anyone who brings up a legitimate concern following any
type of event, right?
Whether it's a mass shooting or it's a hurricane that you could trace back to extreme weather
conditions caused by climate change.
Now they're making it political, they're making it political, because it is political, it
is political.
>> The President.
>> Yeah.
>> What?
>> I mean, at least he said something right.
It's better than most, I think, Republicans on this issue that at least responded.
He said something, one thing, everyone else, just radio silence.
It's an interesting tactic.
I really wonder, and I think if Democratic leadership is smart, they'll see that the
real leadership is coming from these new Congresspeople, Congresswomen specifically.
And they'll run with it, because I think Trump would love nothing more than to go up against
a Biden, a Pelosi, a Schumer.
You know what I'm saying, right?
>> Definitely.
>> He said it.
He said, I look forward to seeing you on the debate stage.
I think if Democrats were smart, if they truly want to win this thing In 2020, I think they
will see with what grace all four of those of women both did what Michelle Obama said
to do, which was to go high, right.
But at the same time, met Trump where he's at.
And they even explicitly, Ayanna Pressley starts out, don't take the bait.
I mean, Ayanna Pressley was amazing.
I was so floored.
But she said, don't take the bait.
We are gonna call this racist, because it is, but we have bigger fish to fry.
>> Yeah, we have work to do.
>> But they didn't at all meet Trump where he's at, at all, yeah.
>> No, but they didn't ignore, they didn't say-
>> They completely took the high road.
>> Well, I'm not gonna, it was not about my race
>> It addressed what he said, yeah, I hear what you're saying, yeah.
>> Exactly.