Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Rips Into Trump, Says He Is ‘Willing To Break The Law To Win Re-Election’
New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ripped into President Donald Trump on Sunday, saying that he was “willing to break the law to win re-election,” according to Newsweek.
Ocasio-Cortez spoke to ABC News’s This Week about Trump’s recent comments made during an interview in which he said that he would be open to accepting “dirt” on opponents by foreign governments. The remarks have been widely chided, even by members of Trump’s own party, while FEC chair Ellen Weintraub clarified that the president’s comments were 100 percent illegal.
Reacting to Trump’s comments, Ocasio-Cortez said that both the Democratic and Republican lawmakers had failed utterly in their attempts to hold the president to account. Speaking to This Week host Jonathan Karl, the New York lawmaker said that Trump was willing to go to any length to protect his presidency and win a successive second-term. She said that Trump’s own comments proved that he was open to “break the law” to hurt his 2020 opponents.
“I think every day that passes, the pressure to impeach grows and I think that it’s justifiable, I think the evidence continues to come in and I believe that with the president now saying that he is willing to break the law to win re-election that transcends partisanship, that transcends party lines and this is now about the rule of law in the United States of America,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
The New York congresswoman also spoke at length about the impeachment debate. Although Democratic lawmakers have admitted that Robert Mueller’s report has shown that Donald Trump tried to subvert the rule of law, the Democratic leadership has appeared reluctant to discuss impeachment proceedings against the president. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that she’d prefer a Democratic candidate to beat Trump in 2020, but Ocasio-Cortez said that it was not the time to play safe. She said it was time to show to the American public that the U.S. Congress follows the letter of law.
“I think that impeachment is incredibly serious and this is about the evidence the president may have committed a crime, in this case, more than one. Our decision on impeachment should be based in our constitutional responsibilities and duties and not in elections or polling,” she said.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Trump 'Willing to Break the Law to Win Reelection,' Impeachment Pressure Grows Daily https://t.co/QVjWO5u9Sk
— Jeffrey Levin ?? (@jilevin) June 16, 2019
The New York congresswoman was also asked about which Democratic candidate she would endorse in such a crowded field, but while she refused to take any names at the moment, Ocasio-Cortez maintained that a progressive leader who was willing to go all the way was the need of the hour in America. She said that a leader with half-measures could risk losing to Trump.
“I think that we have a very real risk of losing the presidency to Donald Trump if we do not have a presidential candidate that is fighting for true transformational change in the lives of working people in the United States,” she said.
