MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

MADDOW: Ninety-six percent in agreement. I`m going to stick to the plan of our party to preserve the agenda of the president.

As of now, Democrats plans are to hold a vote on the smaller bipartisan roads and bridges bill tomorrow. But progressives say there is no reason to do that and they have no intention of passing that unless and until President Biden`s Build Back Better bill, the big -- the big agenda item moves as well. They are committed. So what happens next?

Joining us now is New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, member of the Progressive Caucus.

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, pleasure to have you here. Thanks for your time.

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Of course, thank you for having me.

MADDOW: I wanted to ask you. Obviously, we`re getting to crunch time. There is some reporting tonight that the Senate may have agreed amongst themselves that they will avert a government shutdown tomorrow night. So that may take some of that immediate pressure on but we`re still obviously looking at this string of hurdles in terms of passing the president`s big $3.5 trillion plan.

Is there a different conversation happening inside the Progressive Caucus than is happening inside the Democratic Party caucus as a whole? I know the whole Democratic Caucus meets now and the Progressive Caucus meets amongst themselves. Are those conversations materially different?

OCASIO-CORTEZ: You know, I think the conversations that happen within the Progressive Caucus are very focused in how do we expand child care, health care, climate action and restore power to working class people in the United States of America. That is what we talk about every day, all the time, from week to week.

And, you know, there may be some differences between the Progressive Caucus and the overall caucus in some of those centers of conversation, but I would say that we have been laser focused on this agenda and delivering for working class families across the country all year. And that does not change. It`s really just a discussion of how do we best do that in a way that most people can feel in their everyday lives.

MADDOW: For people who don`t follow congressional process very closely, a lot of people who I know who I respect their sort of news judgment on these things, they say all of our intensive coverage of this process and the will there won`t they discussion is alienating to a lot of people, none of the process makes much sense, the filibuster itself is a mystifying thing. Can you explain for folks who maybe haven`t been covering this or following this super closely why there is an insistence that this smaller bill tomorrow, this bipartisan roads and bridges bill shouldn`t pass on its own tomorrow, right away and then move on to the larger bill later? Why is there an effort to link them both and make sure that the big bill doesn`t get delayed indefinitely after the small bill passes?

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Yeah. So I am I completely agree with you. That a lot of this discussion about process and tit for tat just is very difficult to follow and doesn`t really cover the heart of this conversation, which is that we have two bills at present one which covers -- which underfunds most priorities across the board so there are very few priorities that even get the full funding that they even need.

And then there is the larger what is known as the budget bill, reconciliation bill that has the stuff that you`re going to feel in your everyday life, universal pre-K. We`re talking about college, you know, community colleges. We`re talking about expansion of Medicare, and we`re debating, including vision and dental in Medicare, conversations about lowering the age of it, robust climate action, renewable energy -- all of that stuff that you`re going to feel in your everyday life is in what is known as the Build Back Better Act, aka the reconciliation bill.

Now, when we were discussing uh the scope of this bill way earlier in the year, this is the original infrastructure bill and we have a vast majority of Democrats, about 95 percent, that are that are in agreement of the entire agenda.

Now a very small handful of Democrats, about 4 percent of the party, are trying to essentially split these two priorities up, you know, and I personally don`t think it`s an accident that the ones that a lot of lobbyists love are in the much smaller underfunded bill, that don`t make prescription drugs easier to buy and more affordable, et cetera, and what they want to do is split them apart, force a vote on the first one, and because we have such narrow margins in the Senate and the House, you know, the read that we have is that they`ll just dump the second one. Leave the other one out to dry and just never actually vote on it.

And so, the way that we bring our two parts of the caucus together is by say, you know what, my bill is bound up in your bill and your bill is bound up in my bill. So do I love this very -- you know, what I would argue a conservative underfunded bill? No, but I will vote for it if we pursue them both together.

But what we should not take is this approach which is what people are trying to do by forcing a vote tomorrow on an under-considered, under- amended bill by itself by saying we want to force this vote right now and it`s either my way or the highway, we don`t work together. I want your vote, but I will give you nothing for it. Your community will not benefit from this as much as mine will.

We don`t have to pursue that route. We can instead of saying it`s either mine or yours, we can say both of us can succeed together, and that is the case that the progressive caucus is making.

But if we vote for this bill tomorrow, Rachel, and I want to be very clear about this, if we vote for this underfunded, too small infrastructure bill alone, instead of voting for it with the rest of the president`s agenda, if we vote for it alone, it could make our climate crisis worse and it risks being the only or the last substantive piece of legislation that we will pass.

I do not believe we do not have the assurances necessary to believe in good faith that reconciliation will pass if infrastructure passes tomorrow, because it gives that small narrow margin of Democrats that have, you know, really been making this process quite difficult.

You know, there was a there was an overall agreement between the process two months ago and then there was a reneging of that. And so, if we can just stick to our original plan, stick to the promises we`ve made each other, we can proceed in good faith and transform the lives of millions of Americans for the better.

MADDOW: Do you feel optimistic that`ll happen?

OCASIO-CORTEZ: I do feel optimistic because the Progressive Caucus and not just the Progressive Caucus, but we are now seeing a lot more Democrats, even not part of the Progressive Caucus, join and say, you know what, child care, health care, the climate crisis, this is too important to shelf. It`s too important to shelf.

And I also want to really thank people at home for supporting House Democrats who do not accept corporate PAC and lobbyist money and those sorts of Democrats are not just progressive, they`re not just conservative, they really transcend a lot of party ideology. But they`re a recent phenomenon and that have really been surging since 2016 and 2018, and I really do believe that that is what is changing the dynamic that we`re seeing in Washington today, where that stranglehold that lobbyists have traditionally have had over Washington that still very much do in a lot of sectors is starting to loosen, because everyday American voters and everyday people at home are starting to support members of Congress and send members to Congress that don`t just do what lobbyists tell them to do but say we`re going to make tough decisions.

This is a moment of heartburn, but I want to be clear that not voting for this tomorrow is not a permanent decision. We can always reconsider it when the time is right and when these tensions have been have been assuaged. And I do believe that they will be assuaged.

MADDOW: New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, making a really important structural point there about what motivates individual members of Congress and their decisions at moments like this, moments of heartburn as you say -- thank you, Congresswoman, for joining us tonight I know tomorrow is going to be fraught. And I appreciate you helping us set the stage. Thank you.

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Of course. Thank you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source