Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) shared what it is like being in a room with some of the most powerful individuals in the country, calling it “a sh*t show.”
During an interview with The New Yorker, David Remnick noted Ocasio-Cortez “had some political experience before you were elected, but it was from some distance.”
He asked Ocasio-Cortez, “What do you see in the room? What is it like, day to day, being a member of this institution, which, I have to say, from outside, looks like a sh*t show?”
She replied, “Honestly, it is a sh*t show. It’s scandalizing, every single day. What is surprising to me is how it never stops being scandalizing. Some folks perhaps get used to it, or desensitized to the many different things that may be broken, but there is so much reliance on this idea that there are adults in the room, and, in some respect, there are.”
The Democrat continued, “But sometimes to be in a room with some of the most powerful people in the country and see the ways that they make decisions—sometimes they’re just susceptible to groupthink, susceptible to self-delusion.”
Mentioning the infrastructure bill, Ocasio-Cortez explained, “If it does what it’s intended to do, politicians will take credit for it ten years from now, if we even have a democracy ten years from now.”
She noted the Build Back Better Act is the bulk of the president’s agenda while the infrastructure plan is a much smaller part.
“And so I’m sitting there in a group with some of the most powerful people in the country talking about how, if we pass the infrastructure bill right now, then this will be what the President can campaign on,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
She added, “The American people will give him credit for it. He can win his Presidency on it. If we don’t pass it now, then we’ve risked democracy itself.”
When asked if she thinks the country will have a democracy in 10 years, Ocasio-Cortez replied, “I think there’s a very real risk that we will not. What we risk is having a government that perhaps postures as a democracy, and may try to pretend that it is, but isn’t.”
Last month, Biden told reporters he believes “we can get pieces, big chunks of the Build Back Better law signed into law.”
He added, “So I think we can break the package up, get as much as we can now and come back and fight for the rest of it.”