I don't believe that in a moral and wealthy America, people should be too poor to live.
How are you feeling? Can you put it into words?
Nope. I cannot put this into words.
You are from the Bronx, born and raised. You actually represent and live in the community that
you hope to represent in Congress, when we see all too often Congress members
not even living in their district, like your opponent. What does it mean for you
to have effective representation like that?
There's been so many, especially
working-class people in the Bronx that are so excited. I went to my bodega last
night and people were just excited and clapping. I think it just means a lot to
be seen and to feel seen and to feel like one of you, a representative from
your community that cares, that stays there, has a voice in what's going on.
Most of your fundraising was small donations and you refused to take
corporate PAC money. Why was that so important to you?
I wanted to be a 100%
accountable representative to my community. I believe that the role of
money in politics is really degrading our democracy and hurting our ability to
have effective government. There's a lot you can do without money. You can knock
on your neighbor's door without money. You can make phone calls without money.
And that's just what we did for a really, really long time.
As this race goes on to the midterms, do you see a scenario where you're going to have to start taking
corporate money? And would you do it?
I won't. I am totally fine working
with political organizations, but the line that I want to draw is pretending
that I am neutral in policymaking when I'm taking money from
one side that has a vested, for-profit interest.
You're running on a
"Medicare-for-All," free public college, a federal jobs guarantee. Which is the top
priority for you and how are you going to pay for this?
That's always a question,
"How are you gonna pay for it?" War is very expensive too and we never ask about that.
We only ask how we're gonna pay for things when we're talking about taking care of people.
The GOP tax cut costs the United States
$400 billion. You know what you could have done with
$400 billion? You could have forgiven every single federal student loan debt
in America. That's what you could have done with $400 billion. We want
improved and expanded "Medicare for all." We want tuiton-free public colleges
and trade schools. We want a green new deal to address climate change. I'm an
idealist in my goals, I'm an idealist in my vision, and I'm very pragmatic about
how I get there. I don't believe that in a moral and wealthy America, people
should be too poor to live. I find that to be an unacceptable state – that you can be
too poor to see a doctor, that you can be too poor to send your child to the
school that actually gives them options for their future. And I want to live in a
society that does not fail people's most basic needs to live. And so that for me, it's about dignity.
You call for the abolishment of ICE, and I think a lot of people forget that ICE hasn't really
been around all that long. It was born out of the so-called War on Terror. It's
been around since 2003, only. But what do you see as a replacement for ICE?
I think that immigration should be safe. I think that we should grant people a safe and
documented rite of passage. Republicans try all these scare tactics and they go,
"Oh, open borders!" Because they're trying to incite fear. But what we really
need to do is demilitarize a lot of what's going on in terms of the
detention of people, which has been happening for a very long time, by the
way. And so I think that when we talk about replacing it with a system,
when you talk about really having a system that is safe, that documents
people effectively, that is also not rooted in the discrimination that our
immigration system was initially built on. The first immigration law in the
United States was the Chinese Exclusion Act. The first law about immigration in
the United States was, "How do we exclude a specific type of people?" And our
immigration system has really kind of evolved from that initial root,
and I don't think it necessarily has to be that way.
Days before your election you left New York and you went down to the southern border to protest these
family separations that we're seeing and you said the moral character of our nation is on the line.
Right now, the nation that we are living in is a
country that, an administration, that has committed international human
rights abuses by separating children from their parents.
That is being done in our name. Once something that extreme happens, we have to act immediately.
Do you see any parallels between the Muslim ban and what's going on on the border right now?
Absolutely, absolutely. What the
administration is doing is racializing the fight over immigration and that is
kind of stoking an increased sense of bigotry in the country. And so there's
absolutely a connection. And that is why I think we have to be in solidarity with each other.
You've been outspoken in your support for Palestinian human rights,
which some would say is political suicide for a New York politician, very
uncommon for someone in Congress or running for Congress. You called Israel's
response to peaceful protesters in Gaza a "massacre" in a tweet. Why was it so easy for you to see it that way?
It's just not about nationality. It's about people who
are unarmed who are killed. If 60 people were shot and killed in
Ferguson, if 60 people were shot and killed in Puerto Rico, if 60 people were
shot and killed in the South Bronx. It's tragic. It's tragic.
You're speaking directly to working class folks. Do you think your
message and yourself appeals to Trump supporters?
Just because I may be aghast at the way that somebody voted, doesn't mean that I'm going to permanently
dismiss them. I'm a woman of color that comes from a working-class, sometimes
even poor background depending on the year. And a vote for Donald Trump, a lot
of times I could take it as a personal rebuke of everything that I am,
but I just cannot give in to that because I still believe that there's a
lot of people that could be won over on that agenda, on my agenda.
Do you think we can talk about class without talking about race,
and talk about race without talking about class?
No, no. There's this false notion that you can separate these
two issues, there's a false notion that you have to pick one or another, and it
is patently false. This is the United States of America. We have to confront
our history. We founded our nation on an economic system of slavery. That has
evolved to Jim Crow laws. It evolved into mass incarceration. There is no
economic issue in the United States that does not have racial implications and
vice versa. You look at issues like immigration, you look at issues like
criminal justice reform, private prisons. They all have economic implications. And
the idea of saying, "Oh, we need to talk about class and not race," is to also
erase the identity of many people. It's not like only one class, creed, religion of person is working class.
So it's clearly a dark time for a lot of people
in the country, especially young progressives who have just been seeing
you know a lot of doom and gloom since Donald Trump was elected president.
What do you say to young people to give them hope and to get them engaged?
Wherever there is a fight, there is hope. When people stop fighting, that is when
hope ends. And I think that's what we proved on
Tuesday, that no matter the odds, change is possible in America and that our
nation is never beyond repair.