Interview Quotes

The Impact of Background on Politics

"And so when I talk about my story, I feel like there's no there's no story of me without the story of my parents."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 00:06:17

"And I knew from a very young age that that was wrong."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 00:13:21

"I always just felt this really kind of unconscious sense, I think, when you're a child and you see injustice, you know that something is off, but you don't have the words to articulate it."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 00:14:38

"And it was really radicalizing and shocking to me when I saw that when I was in college, it was that I was like, how could we reward the people who did this and abandon the millions of people who've been victimized by this massive economic crime?"

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 00:23:13

"Yeah, exactly. And it, it, it supercharged that kind of cynicism."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 00:27:20

"And that's what I did. And what tending bars and yeah, I waitressed, I tended bar. I, I, that's what I did not for a summer, but for four to five years of my life. Well, and, um, it's actually there and my experience doing that and my family's experience that led me to that, that was the most important formative political experience of my life."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 00:33:17

"It was very radicalizing for me. And, um, and you know, not only that, and I'm not saying this just to blow smoke at you. But also when you were the first presidential candidate to come to the Bronx since Bobby Kennedy in 1968."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 00:38:06

"And you're going there really like it was, it was shocking because nobody cares about us."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 00:41:47

"And I felt that my family, my background, the way that I'm raised, and also what has informed my politics, even intellectually, is very much the spiritual undercurrent of a left politics, especially in America, liberation theology, the civil rights movement."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 00:44:24

"And I remember looking up this guy and I was like, I've never seen this man in my life. Like, not once ever. I was like, who is this? And I kind of thought, you know, if I haven't seen him, and if I don't know who he is, then I know that no one else knows who he is."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 00:47:44

"No one else would do it. It was quite as crazy as you are."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 00:51:14

"My goal was if we at least had a choice, if we at least forced the first primary election in 14 years in this community, then that will have been a service. Like, let's just see if we can get on the ballot."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 00:53:39

"It was, it was lunacy. It was lunacy. But there were enough people that we were able to organize at that point that we collected the signatures to get on the ballot."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 00:56:54

"And the core message of our campaign was that we deserve better."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 00:58:45

"And that's when I was like, wait, we could win this thing. We could win this thing."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 01:00:54

The Power of Grassroots Organizing and Political Vision

"I think that the actual, the greatest trick that the establishment plays on us is trying to convince us that we're not winning when we are in order to get us to give up."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 01:23:21

"And that's called marginalization. All right."

— Bernie Sanders • 01:37:05

"I stayed for many of the reasons that you described earlier. I grew up in a family that didn't have any money. We lived in a rent control department in Brooklyn."

— Bernie Sanders • 01:38:32

"And that's what I experienced. And I think that's what millions of people are experiencing right now. Just tremendous stress."

— Bernie Sanders • 01:42:07

"And that is why I am a democratic socialist, because I believe that, um, that the people people who create value and wealth and work in our society and our economy deserve many more of the fruits of their labor."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 01:45:38

"Are people entitled to healthcare as a human right? Yeah. Are all people regardless of their income entitled to good education, from childcare through graduate school, if they want that, or they want to go to training school, whatever they want? Yeah, they are. People entitled to decent housing."

— Bernie Sanders • 01:47:37

"Living in the richest country in the history of the world, this is not some utopian fantasy. This can be done."

— Bernie Sanders • 01:49:23

"Either we're going to have a cooperative society where we care and love each other, or you're going to have a handful of people on top whose greed is their religion."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 01:55:40

"The fact that people are choosing between medicine and rent is barbarism. The fact that people are worried about whether they will be on the street every four weeks is barbarism."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 01:56:55

"And if we do not demand, and not only demand, but win unions, healthcare, wages, ending endless war, then we will condemn ourselves to barbarism."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 01:58:37

"And whether we live to see it or not, I believe we will. But at the end, what matters is what we dedicated ourselves to. And that, to me, is what makes it both successful and valuable."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 02:00:49

"I want to thank you. I don't think I would have had healthcare as a kid. I had Child Healthcare Plus in New York. I don't know if I would have been able to see a doctor if it wasn't for you fighting for me before I knew who you even were."

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez • 02:03:18