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Date: 2025-08-21 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00027971

US POLITICS ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ Latino USAS ... AOC: ‘I’m Not Going to Give Them My Fear’ PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5CyHQbB9vM Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess
AOC: ‘I’m Not Going to Give Them My Fear’ Latino USA 2.7K subscribers ... 9,378 views ... 1.4K likes Feb 5, 2025 Amid the chaos generated by Donald Trump’s first days back in the White House, Maria Hinojosa sits down with someone who has sounded off on the former and current president for years: New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. AOC tells us what, in her opinion, went wrong for Democrats in 2024 and how the party can win back voters. She also highlights the beauty and value immigrants bring to the U.S., analyzes the new geopolitics of Latin America and more. Read more about the episode here: https://www.latinousa.org/2025/02/02/... Subscribe to our Latino USA channel: ‪@LatinoUSA‬ Find more from Latino USA: https://www.latinousa.org Follow us: TikTok: / futuromedia X: https://x.com/LatinoUSA Instagram: / latinousa Facebook: / latinousa Threads: https://www.threads.net/@latinousa Subscribe to Latino USA podcasts: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/050DWfg... Our Latino USA Newsletter: https://www.futuromediagroup.org Transcript 0:00 I think people you know this Administration is much more prepared and planned this time around in terms of the kinds of chaos that they're trying to unleash um but I think people are also more focused this time around um and what they're doing is a show like it it's a weird thing to articulate because there's an enormous amount of damage that is being done but what they are trying to invoke more than legal programs more than policy they are trying to invoke fear more than anything [Music] else so you remember the last time we spoke in the Bronx right yeah do you 1:00 remember when it was you're like you're like there's so many interviews I do the co it was right it was uh May April or May of 2021 yeah was you were the first interview I did post the opening yeah like we went up to the Bronx it was like my God I haven't been to the Bronx in so long and um we had a great conversation we saw your office but I remember that to be honest cuz cuz I'm honest right right MH AOC she's she's dealing with stuff yeah and so we talked about that right because I'm a big proponent of therapy yeah and what happened was that it was months after January 6 yeah right it that was yeah that was just like four months after four or five months after January 6 and so we talked about because they came after you in January 6 and you know you're like I'm a young woman just kind of running for office doing my thing and now these people literally want to hang me yeah yeah so tell us 2:02 where you are right now considering that Donald Trump has now pardoned yeah the people who were coming after you yeah you know I that day changed me it just there was a before that day and there was an after that day I had a moment where I very concretely like almost on a biological level believe that I was going to die and so like a near-death experience absolutely you know I I just felt that way I was locked in a bathroom and I didn't know what was there was banging on the door and I didn't know who was on the other side and I thought it would like I you know that was just what it was and but there is a certain inventory that your mind your body yourself that you take when you have an experience like that almost making peace with the fact that this was about to happen and 3:05 you know I felt like afterwards I had a lot of things that I needed to reflect on and in a lot in some ways it was like kind of a gift um but in other ways it was very challenging and very very difficult but I think now like having I need to interrupt you when you say this was a bit of a gift I'm Sam my heart just stopped I'm like you're saying you're saying that kind of having to experience that confrontation with Life Death kind of huge philosophical issue but also looking at the trauma that you've then had to face and grow from so help us to understand that um I think so my dad died at a very young age when I was my dad died when I was um when I was 18 and right after he passed 4:03 away I was very close with him and right after he passed away of course you feel like the devastation of a loss but I also felt an immense amount of gratitude like I felt very grateful because I got to know him you know like I got to be raised by this person and so in times of tragedy and travesty and Devastation there's also these G Gifts of clarity yeah and when I was like kind of locked in that bathroom and I thought that it was that I kind of thought that like it was over at that point what I had felt and what I experienced and what my mind had experienced was like and I'm I I was raised in a religious context I 5:04 personally am am a spiritual person um and I felt like you know what if I'm going to be taken in this moment then that means people are going to be okay it means that that is what is supposed to be and that I just had this feeling like they they'll take it from here and um I say that because now yeah like Trump pardoned virtually all the January 6th insurrectionists including hundreds with violent records including specifically people who were arrested with specific threats against my life personally and and I don't want to give 6:01 them my fear I'm not going to give them my fear and I feel more like squaring up than anything else I'm like if you want to come come because I'm I it's this is like this monster that feeds on our Terror and what they represent are people who they they eat fear they sustain themselves on anxiety and I'm not going to give them that I care about other people I care about my communities these people need cynicism they need apathy they eat fear they need chaos they need anxiety and the more we give them that the bigger they get 7:01 and all of these big scary things it reminds me of like at the end of The Wizard of Oz where they yeah they just You Yank back the curtain and it's a little guy and it's a small scared incompetent little man yeah and I think we just need to remain focused yes they are capable of immense amounts of damage it it can be scary it's not something we ignore it's not something we check out from but we register it we say okay and then we figure out what our options are and we do the best we can day by day so the 65 million billion dollar question would be and you know what I'm about to ask which is after strong midterm elections well after the election of Biden then strong midterm elections for a president who was you know kind of L nuke War in terms 8:00 of acceptance but still and then this so obviously you've been thinking about this at nauseum or maybe not right so what happened there's a lot of focus back and forth on the presidential and even now in this moment um there's a lot of people that are kind of saying like do something but I think what has not sunk in and what there has not been as much disc discussion about at least especially in the consequences for this present moment is that it's not just that we lost the presidential election we lost the Senate and we lost the house which means that at the very least if Democrats were able to win the house we could stop bad things from happening and it doesn't mean that we can always make good things happen but it does mean we can stop bad things from happening now in terms of the election I 9:03 mean there are so many different factors um and you know people can say listen we switched out presidential candidates like on specific you know on specific levels right like I think it is just a fundamentally unfair position to be put in to have having to run a presidential campaign in 90 days and I think that you know completely separate I I I just think like I think that that vice president Harris took on this enormous assignment with a lot of Grace and with as much dignity and she worked her she worked so hard and her husband worked hard and their family worked hard but you have 90 days to run a presidential election against someone 10:03 who has been running for president for 4 years 3 and a half four years I mean shortly after Trump lost uh in 2020 he started his presidential campaign all over again so he has three four years of non-stop campaigning he was rallying in this country all the time constantly for four years um so there's that piece but I think structurally overall the Democratic party because of its coalitional nature is often kind of has this confused message because they're like we're supposed to be a party of the working class and I think people workingclass people have not been seeing government work for them and they have not been seeing or hearing 11:00 the things that they need to see and hear despite a lot of the things that the Biden Administration did do you know I think that Biden Easley is probably one of the most Pro labor presidents that we have seen in modern history first president in American history to walk a picket line with the UAW um but you have but then you have Gaza which I think really tore up a lot of the mob mobilizing base in the Democratic Party um and this relationship with organizers that the Democratic party has um that you know it's not about like did it lose us voters I think it I think it really lost us mobilizers um that which made things challenging and you know for you personally I mean I was going to leave this towards the end but you brought it up I mean for you personally um I remember seeing that video of you being confronted on the street I don't know if it was in DC or if it was here in New York um with protesters raising the issue of gasa 12:03 talking about the word genocide genocide criticizing you and you getting visibly upset yeah and I think there's been a lot of misinformation at play in that space too and it's I think to me like the frustration that's sometimes where my frustration has come from that's sometimes where my heartbreak has come from because I have no problem with of course activism but to me if you're going to take the enormous steps of confronting a public figure then you should and recording it and doing what you have to do then you can probably be bothered to do a basic Google search and the amount of misinformation that has exploded because people are chasing retweets of a lie has been really painful like there 13:02 we are especially in terms of social media we are on the platforms of billionaires and these billionaires modify these algorithms and they wield them politically we see that most explicitly with Twitter but it is also at play on on meta on Facebook Etc um and you know I think it it was really hard watching people and communities that I am aligned with fall for right-wing misinformation so you feel like you were a victim you were being set up with a lot of misinformation as opposed to I should have come to it I should have been clearer I should have said something differently done something differently I mean I feel like if we want to talk about individual decisions or moments that's one thing but the idea that I was somehow late to this I think is a 14:00 complete falsehood and lie I was original co-sponsor of the ceasefire resolution basically as soon as as Congress was back in session um yeah as soon as Congress was back in session after October 7th I was an original co-sponsor of the ceasefire resolution pretty much as close legislatively as you can get um as original co-sponsor I was one of the first members of Congress period to to designate it uh what was happening in Gaza a genocide in a speech on the house floor directed towards President Biden and it was almost like not Amplified at all at the time which is fine but I don't control that right so just because someone became aware of it in July August September like I can't control you know when someone else learns about something 15:00 but I I was up there in early spring and for me if we want to talk about you know why I don't call it a genocide on day one first of all you know we had the October 7th attack by Hamas but to me that term is significant it is important it is something that must stand up to scrutiny at the international criminal court it is something that is definitional this is something that Palestinians not only are facing now but this is also of course something that that communities and peoples around the world have encountered whether it's the rohinga whether it is you know so many other communities suffering through this and so to me this is not something that we just say because of a bunch of comments on social media this is something that we say because we are bearing witness to something that is transpiring before us 16:04 and that we have to make the in my context in a legislative and legal context I have to feel prepared to make the case and so when I felt that the case was ready I made it and but to me you know people may uh criticize it as late um but I think if we follow follow day by day what was transpiring in that time and by the way it wasn't like a light switch went off we immediately called for a ceasefire I called it a human rights atrocity and also people are very angry at me because I call out anti-Semitism where I see it and I do think there's a distinct line and no condemnation of of the what the Israeli government is doing does not equate to anti- it does not equate to anti-Semitism anti does not equate to anti-Semitism uh but anti-Semitism is 17:04 real and anti-Semitism is on the rise and I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I don't see it if I don't if I see it um and so you know that may put me in a certain complicated space for people but it does not put me in a complicated space with myself and that to me is the most important thing so what happens between now and with everything that you've said um in the external critiques your critiques of the democratic party um the frustration with so many young people with the party right but you've got two years right there are two years until the midterms so what do you think the party what can you do in these two years and also understanding the way you say it which is I was in fact targeted for Miss and disinformation it has cost me a 18:04 externally not internally so what how do you change all of that yeah so that the Democrats have a chance at winning something I mean and I want to be clear like I'm I don't feel like this is like a victim frame when it comes to misinformation like I just think this is the environment that we live in now like there is so I mean even right now in this present moment there's so much fear that people think that any police officer walking down the street could be indicative of an ice raid so this is something that we're contending with right and it makes the information environment challenging because we have so many people calling in ice raids but there's only a couple of them that are actually ice raids and so we have to every time someone calls something in we have to send a person out there to and it can be a drain on resources and so anyways I say all of this because the misinformation environment is just everywhere and the more a space thinks 19:05 that they are immune to misinformation the more susceptible and vulnerable they are to it to be frank like because what we actually need are people who are just willing to just take a beat the moment you see something that is evoking an emotion anger fear whatever just take one beat to Google it verify triple verify and it's really important to do because people will often amplify it out of good intention right they think they're standing up they think that they're you know amplifying information about ice somewere but it needs to be verified and um and if you're a person that's reporting it you know if you want to notify people about ice activity somewhere take a picture make sure it says ice on their back make sure sure that it's labeled you know identify the time the 20:05 location that information should be there and it should be there if you amplify it too there are a lot of families and parents in our neighborhoods that are legally transitioning guardianship of over their children to someone else and they are self they they are preparing to leave their children here and to return to their home countries so that they can start the clock on on their return on their return because for people who may not know if you're here undocumented and you want a chance at coming here you can't be deported you you c yeah you have to you first of all you cannot be deported and second of all you kind of have to wait out a penalty period of about 10 years and so if their child is 8 years old there are people that are already making the decision they're transitioning Guardians ship they're they're they're trying to protect their 21:01 children and they're making the heartbreaking decision to leave their kids here and they are going back to their home countries so that in 10 years when their child is 18 their child can maybe try to get their parent and reunify with them and these are people who pay taxes who are upstanding citizens what have you but anyways all of this is to say like in this misinformation environment you know what do we do what do we do in the next two years I you know a lot of people have been asking me questions about the Democratic party and I feel like I have a famously tenuous relationship with the Democratic party I'm like so when people say she's too close to the party you're like I'm like uh where receipt please somebody said uh in fact in preping they were like you know maybe she has a lot of influence in the Democratic party and I was like I yeah I mean I'm not like I it's one of it's an in I have a weird relationship with the Democratic party I 22:06 am a dissenter I am part of this Coalition somewhat in a way like almost reluctantly in in that I don't believe in a two party system um if we had a multi-party system lots of people would not be in the same party with one another you know but I also understand that the Democratic party is a coalition and if we want the party to change the balance of the Coalition has to change but right now if you open the hood on the Democratic party what you still what you have I think is a bit of a power struggle over the last couple of years um and also a transformation how the party views itself I think if you asked five years ago what the biggest Fishers in the party are I think people would say progressive versus moderate and they 23:04 will look at things through that frame that there's like this neoliberal camp in the Democratic party that is very friendly with corporations and business and always pushing to the center the and always pushing to the center others would say pushing to the right right to the right and then there is like this Progressive camp and even that Progressive camp like some of it is focused on workingclass politics others of it are focused on um especially like five years ago like a more identity and identitarian politics as well um but I think that's changed now and I think that it's not gone but I think we're we are also having these other kind of cross Fishers and conversations I think there is a generational confrontation happening within the Democratic party that is not complete you know I think there's a lot of people that want to say we're a new party now we're hip you know we're it's 24:02 new no it is I think it's happening there's a lot more newly elected Democrats that are out there but they are not the the by and large the decision makers in the Democratic party and so those decision makers are still largely there are some shifts but a lot of those decision makers are still not just the same people but from the same school of thought and so you can have new figures um that still either ascribe themselves or have to appeal to people that that still have to have this kind of understanding of politics that is I would argue 10 20 years regressed right the Toral Coalition that Democrats went for and have been going for have largely been 25:04 affluent voters and um affluent white voters have been like the central Focus for quite some time and I think that especially when we talk about Latinos too um one of the things that I think is in you know people will take like the election results very surface level um but I will tell you in our community the anger was less about like oh we need to deport immigrants the the anger because these are immigrant communities the anger was actually how the Trump Administration and the campaign uh was actually very Surgical and very sophisticated about drawing a wedge between undocumented people and recent arrivals and Asylum Seekers that 26:04 resentment exists because of the lack of movement on a path to citizenship and so I think what is being misread about the moment because so many people understandably are so disgusted with Trump that they tune him out and that's certainly something that I did in the first Trump Administration I don't need like I need to protect my peace right but as a practitioner of politics if you did not listen to a single Trump rally if you weren't listening to how they were talking to people this time around you would miss that that the Trump campaign was talking to people very differently this time around than they did the first time around I think they've learn from their mistakes I asked a lot of trump voters and asked about Trump uh voters in my district not I mean I did this online but we actually went door to-door canvasing as well and when I ask people 27:04 where do you get your news from who do you trust increasingly people are saying I want to hear from the politician themselves yeah and that they will believe what that politician says more than what the media says about that politician and so when Trump says we're not going to deport you we're only going after the quote unquote like rapists and murderers um which by the way is already standing US law um but when he says that people believe him and what you do with when a lot of people believe a liar is a tricky scenario in which we find ourselves people used to trust media Outlets more than they trusted politicians and so but then that 28:00 credibility has eroded over time and so what we do about that you know this is the this is the soil in which misinformation flourishes in which uh you know strong men can just say their things and people will just believe it so um so you went on Instagram live um and which you're kind of back to doing that right a little bit more um and you talked very clearly about immigrants you're like by the way let me just tell you the facts right yeah so uh I think you know this just because of the amount of time that I've been doing this right I'm constantly saying it's about the narrative and the journalism that we do so you are in fact it seems trying to correct the narrative change the narrative take control of it flip the narrative what is it that you want people to understand in this Narrative of what Alexandria want wants America to understand about immigrants forward moving forward is 29:03 well there's two things one if you care about people and you have a compassionate case but then two is also just a hard-nosed economic case um first and foremost like this idea that people are immigrants or illegal Etc the like we're talking about ourselves this is the fabric of our country the fabric of our community and when people say oh I think it's fine they just need to be here legally they're shutting down all legal Pathways like they're they're just shutting them down day one the cbp1 app which I I wasn't even a huge fan of but if when they say oh you want to come here enter through a Port of Entry that was the app literally app for application both the legal way the legal pathway even though you're going to have to wait in Mexico for who knows how many months under or who knows what conditions but you want to do it legally 30:01 you're so desperate to do it legally yes so when you shut down legal Pathways you supercharge undocumented Pathways and so that's number one if you support and if you don't want undocumented people in this country which to be honest nobody wants undocumented people in this country we want people to be documented right we don't want people living in the shadows and in fear these are human beings but they are also assets to the United States of America now when I move to the economic case I want to say first that yes it is fraught you know because it is painful to see sometimes people only talk about the economic case because we're more than just a labor force we're more than just a people to be exploited but let's be clear the people who are voting in this way often times don't respond to a case of compassion and humanity and so if you want to be hard-nosed about it 31:03 understand that America's immigration force and our community of immigrants including and especially the millions of undocumented people in this country are why America has prospered especially why we survived the covid-19 pandemic and for all of the people who cast a vote based on grocery prices and inflation if you think your groceries are expensive now wait until the Farms are empty if you think houses are expensive now wait until there's no one building them understand the consequences of what this means because for America to not accept immigrants is the definition of cutting off your nose to spite your face okay so it is a different geopolitic though it's not diff it's very different than what happened in the first Trump 32:00 Administration a lot of things have changed on their side on the activism side but also in terms of Latin America and World politics right so he went after Mexico and the first woman president uh Claudia sham bom had a few words for president Trump went after Panama and the Panama Canal uh went after Colombia and the president so what's your sense of what's going to happen with the Latin American geopolitics of this moment and this Administration well it's important to understand that the Trump Administration and Steve Bannon they have very strong ties in Latin America they have been working with right-wing movements there is an ascendant right-wing in Chile in Colombia in Brazil in all of these places that are that have direct connections but you have these populist 33:00 movements in Latin America that have taken foot um where those establishments did not necessarily Prevail in squashing people's movements the way that they have sometimes happened in here in the United States and so you have the ascendency of Claudia shamam of Lula of Petro of borich and of course everyone has their own challenge is cuz governance is hard but it is actually the first time we've seen these populist movements have a real opportunity at governance and showing people what is possible when people's movements actually gain power and Claudia Shin bound's popularity is directly tied to these transformative social policies that they have rolled out in Mexico and so they I think we can expect that Trump is going to do everything they can to go after her to go after all of these folks Marco Rubio has already kind of done this um 34:04 in a lower key way in a way that people don't really pay as much attention to but he will hold hearings in order to try to threaten I think um uh Colombia's current Administration and politically undermine that administration because in Colombia understandably there's a lot of anxiety around the stability of Colombia's relationship to the United States and so if you get Marco Rubio from the Senate trying to undermine it you can destabilize some of those politics and so you know in terms of the future I think we can obviously predict that Trump is going to be hostile to the people who stand up to him but if the people who stand up to him stand together um then we can keep a an anti- Democratic small D Democratic uh leader kind of as contained as as we can we can do what we can uh with that which is why you know it's like these when Trump announced these tariffs after P didn't 35:05 even say we won't accept these Deportes he said come correct he said don't send them on a military plane send them on the planes that you have been sending them on um and Trump wants to announce 25% tariffs on Colombia some of the primary ex one of the primary exporters of not just coffee but flowers right before Valentine's Day flowers flowers like you know like I said to to approach the Latino Community with hostility in this country in the Western Hemisphere a Latin hemisphere this is a Latin American hemisphere like the Caribbean Central America South America North America this is it it is to try to approach a hostile relationship um with Latina people in the United States 36:03 but also everywhere that we come from is just not in our best interest as a country it's just not who What entity plays thing that you do to find that peace that strength where is it coming from where are you turning to now but I think um you know as a Puerto Rican we Puerto Ricans have I think such a funny relationship to challenging circumstances to laa yeah you know because we're the oldest colony in the world right um and so difficult conditions are not a new thing for us and I don't think it's a coincidence that Puerto Ricans are very funny and we're very loud and we dance a lot and because it's like genuinely like it it a conscious choice to be happy is a form of 37:06 resistance and this is something that sometimes I culturally sometimes feel a little D joined from the American left like I I actually feel sometimes um more at home in a Latin American left uh culturally um because there's almost this idea that you're not allowed to be happy in the US when there is suffering going on and that is the opposite of like when you actually look at people who are enduring some of the deepest most brutal regimes they are sometimes the most conscientious about cultivating Happiness joy Gathering music dancing my number one thing that I want people to know is like you're allowed to be happy you're allowed to be happy you are allowed to cultivate joy 38:05 in fact you need to because our job is to build the world that we want and if we do not allow ourselves to be to to gather with our friends to be happy then we are not reminding ourselves of why we're doing any of this we can not be joyless people um we will not sustain ourselves we will not last long and I think about this specifically in a Latino context and in a context of immigrants right like everything that they're trying to get us to do is trying to get us to hide and trying to get us to not exist in public and for so many cultures and people um from you know Generations over the way that we need to do that is that we have to express ourselves we have to make music 39:04 we have to I mean I think what Benito is doing is like a perfect example of this right we are exper from just from a Puerto Rican context you know Puerto Ricans what we're experiencing right now is such a deep pain at our displacement we are being displaced like not only is it a colony but we are being actively colonized in another wave um by American Real Estate Investors and they are they want a Puerto Rico without Puerto Ricans and this is something that is a deep source of pain and yet when we make art about it when We Gather in it when we fuel ourselves up with joy in that then we become stronger than ever thank you for coming in to the studio appreciate good to see you thank you so much likewise

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