AOC Details The 'Everyday Influence Of Corruption Dark Money' In Congress

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At a "Fight Oligarchy" event in Folsom, California on Tuesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) spoke about the influence of lobbyists in Congress.

Transcript

00:00When I first got to Congress, I was genuinely shocked by how the place worked, even having

00:09run against dark money in the first place.

00:13The everyday influence of corruption and dark money was astonishing.

00:19We have somehow conditioned ourselves in Congress to believe that it's normal for elected representatives

00:27who swear an oath to the American people to day trade individual stock and make millions

00:36with the sensitive information that we are entrusted with for the purpose of governing.

00:43How can anyone possibly make an objective vote on health care, energy or war when their personal

00:51money is tied up in pharmaceutical companies, oil and gas companies or defense company stocks?

01:01You can't.

01:02And we saw this play out this week with Trump's corrupt and disastrous tariff scheme.

01:10We can see now that his tariff shuffle didn't have anything to do with manufacturing like

01:16they claimed.

01:17I hope we recognize now that it was all about manipulating the markets so that he could quietly

01:25enrich his friends who bought the dip before revising, reversing it all in the morning.

01:31Folsom, what I'm about to say is a matter of fact.

01:40Donald Trump is a criminal.

01:44He was found guilty of 34 felony counts of fraud, liable for sexual abuse.

01:52Of course he is lying and manipulating the stock market too.

01:57And if Donald Trump wants to find the rapists and criminals in this country, he needs to look

02:03in a mirror today.

02:16And to be clear, I don't care what party you are, Democrat or Republican, it doesn't matter

02:23how powerful one is or what position they hold, members of Congress holding and trading individual

02:30stock is wrong, it is corrosive, it is destructive and it needs to be banned.

02:37You know, just this year, earlier this year, I was named to the Energy and Commerce Committee

02:47in the House of Representatives.

02:50And this is one of the most powerful committees in all of Congress.

02:56It oversees two-thirds of the American economy.

03:00Health care, manufacturing, trade, energy, communications, you name it.

03:06And for years, lobbyists fought to keep me off of this committee.

03:11Because they don't like what they don't control.

03:15And an interesting thing happened on the day that it was announced that I would be assigned

03:22to the committee.

03:23Our phones rang off the hook and my office's inboxes were flooded by every corporate lobbyist

03:31under the sun.

03:32All of a sudden, they wanted to be best friends.

03:37But you know what, Folsom?

03:39Because of your support.

03:42Because of gatherings like here today.

03:44Because you allow me to not take a dime in corporate money.

03:49You free me to say no.

03:52You free me to fight for Medicare for all people.

03:58You free me to fight for a renewable energy economy.

04:04But not everyone is so lucky.

04:07I've seen firsthand how these groups bully and pressure members of Congress.

04:12They threaten to take their money away or to spend it against them if they don't do what

04:17they want.

04:18And what they want is for our lives to be as expensive as possible on the lowest possible

04:25wage.

04:26What they want is for as many people to be exploited in America as possible.

04:33And it trickles down to how life feels for working people today.

04:39So I want us to understand that this constant pressure that we feel in our lives, of the water

04:45rising up to our throats, the impossibility to afford anything easily, the fear of speaking

04:52up or being who we are in public, the bitter divisions driven more by online algorithms than

04:59the truth, the crumbling of our rights and protections.

05:04Understand that this right now is what it feels like to be governed by billionaires.

05:13Not someday, but right now.

05:15Not someday, but right now.

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