Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appeared on The View on Wednesday, where she and conservative host Meghan McCain butted heads over the topic of socialism.
McCain opened the segment by joking that she is the bogeywoman of the right to the left and Ocasio-Cortez is the same to the right.
“To conservatives like me who think that big government is very, very dangerous, it is like the apocalypse,” she said.
She went on to argue that Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are asking Americans to shift from capitalism to socialism and that they mostly don’t support a socialist system.
The New York Democrat, who has argued that billionaires need to give up their power , replied that most Americans actually would vote for Sanders, who espouses socialist ideals and calls himself a Democratic Socialist.
Ocasio-Cortez explained that most individuals don’t make enough to live well across different cities in the United States because they take in less than $40,000 a year, so the country does need a paradigm shift.
“You can barely live on that anywhere,” she said. “You can’t live on that if you have kids. I think that that reality, personally, does require a paradigm shift. This isn’t working for us. A $2.1 trillion tax cut which has been deemed capitalism at its finest doesn’t work for us.”
The congresswoman continued by blasting Donald Trump’s tax cuts, which primarily benefited wealthy Americans, adding that capitalism had failed when it comes to health care.
In response, McCain pushed her, saying that neither she nor Sanders has explained how they would pay for universal health care.
Ocasio-Cortez pointed out that voters aren’t asking how Trump is paying for the tax cuts, which have helped push the U.S. deficit to record highs. After co-host Whoopi Goldberg pointed out that the congresswoman hadn’t addressed how it would be paid for, she argued that Medicare for All and tuition-free college could be paid for with things like Wall Street transaction taxes and that the premiums would equal the amount that people would pay in a payroll tax into a government health care system.
McCain cut her off and said that they would just have to agree to disagree. She then changed the topic to that of the “Bernie Bros,” or Sanders supporters who are critiqued for their aggressive defense of their candidate.
“I think internet culture can often be very toxic,” she stressed, saying that it is often aimed at women.
When McCain opined that Sanders may not have done enough to fight the culture, Goldberg joined in, adding that he needs to push back against that type of behavior every day.
While the audience seemed to appreciate Ocasio-Cortez’s comments — given its warm response — Goldberg wasn’t so taken with the Democrat. She argued that Ocasio-Cortez had made people feel rejected and attacked, as the Washington Examiner reported.
“You know, I was very happy when you were elected because I thought it was a great step in a good direction,” she replied. “And then, you lost me because it felt like you were saying to people like me that I was too old and didn’t do enough.”
