AOC goes viral with SPEECH OF THE YEAR

Metatube

For more from Brian Tyler Cohen: Straight-news titled YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@briantylercohennews YouTube (español): https://www.youtube.com/@briantylercohenespanol Order my #1 NYT bestselling book: https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/shameless Newsletter: https://plus.briantylercohen.com Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/briantylercohen Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/36UvEHs Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0066rKCBIycIMI4os6Ec5V Twitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohen Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohen Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohen TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@briantylercohen Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/briantylercohen.bsky.social Threads: https://www.threads.net/@briantylercohen

Transcript

00:00For all the big talk that Republicans and the Trump administration like to flap about

00:06working people, if you actually listen carefully, every once in a while they let the mask slip

00:13about what they actually think about us.

00:16You know, just last week, President Trump's lawyer, her name is Alina Haba, she went on

00:24television, and when she actually had to be faced with explaining her job, and when she

00:31actually had to be faced with doing her job, this is what she had to say, quote, quote,

00:40what intellectual thought, she was asked about me, quote, what intellectual thought?

00:46You were in a bar.

00:48You were in a bar, AOC, and not to have a drink, but to serve one.

00:53And I want you all to understand, and I don't care what this woman says about me, but, anyway,

01:02I said I again, and I want you to understand that she isn't just talking about me here.

01:11She's talking about you.

01:14She's talking about all of us.

01:17Because the entire job of the President's lawyer is to speak for him.

01:23Trump hired her to speak for him.

01:27So imagine what it means for our country that the President's own lawyer cannot even conceive

01:36of a working class person being intelligent simply because of the job that they have.

01:45This woman could not even recognize the American dream if it was fed to her on a silver spoon.

01:54But understand that this kind of disdain for working people by the most powerful people

02:00in this country doesn't just come from not being raised right.

02:05It's a shorthand for Elon Musk and Donald Trump's entire political agenda and a certain

02:12ugly kind of politics, lying to and screwing over working people so that they can steal

02:20from our health care and social security and veterans care to pay for tax cuts for the

02:26wealthiest and bailouts for their crypto billionaire friends.

02:32There's a verb for this.

02:34Corruption.

02:35That's AOC, who's joining Bernie Sanders on his nationwide stop oligarchy tour.

02:39And she very rightly points out the utter contempt that the Trump administration has

02:43for the very people it claimed to want to help back during the campaign,

02:47back when they actually needed something from their voters,

02:50only for them now to decide that their priority wouldn't be lowering high costs

02:54for housing or rent or groceries or eggs, but the polar opposite.

02:58It would be engaging in a voluntary and destructive trade war that would send costs soaring.

03:03It would be taking an axe to Medicaid and screwing over the more than 70 million

03:06Americans who rely on it.

03:08It would be taking an axe to food stamps and the more than 40 million Americans who rely on it.

03:12It would be chipping away at social security by firing the employees who actually make

03:16that department run.

03:17It would be firing thousands of veterans who serve other veterans at the VA.

03:21It would be slashing education funding and health care and climate programs

03:24and national park funding and cancer research and practically everything

03:28that doesn't directly benefit Trump or Elon Musk's own personal bottom line.

03:33The reality is that if Alina Haba or Trump or Musk truly cared about regular Americans,

03:37they would use some of their political capital to actually show it.

03:41And let's be clear, this is a recurring theme with Donald Trump.

03:44Literally the last time he had unified control of government,

03:47Republicans swept into office amid promises of an infrastructure law that never materialized,

03:51a manufacturing renaissance that never materialized,

03:54a jobs boom that never materialized, a middle class tax cut that never materialized.

03:59But you know what did happen?

04:01You know what they did have time for?

04:03A tax cut for millionaires and billionaires.

04:05That is what their priority is.

04:07And if it was their priority back then,

04:09then you shouldn't be surprised that yet again it's a priority right now

04:12when Trump's administration is composed of a record number of billionaires.

04:16Elon Musk, Linda McMahon, Howard Lutnick, Charles Kushner, Stephen Wyckoff,

04:20Scott Besson, David Sachs, Kelly Loeffler, Doug Burgum, Dr. Oz, and so many more.

04:25So if the outright contempt they show for working class people doesn't already make it clear enough,

04:30the composition of this cabinet should really drive the message home.

04:34In fact, the very things that Trump and Republicans pretended they would do

04:38are the things that Democrats actually do when they're in office,

04:41and yet Republicans have the audacity to claim that it's the Democrats who are radical,

04:45who are extreme.

04:46Take a listen to this and let me know which part of this is radical.

04:49So let me share with you exactly what I mean.

04:53Because when they like to call us radical, and what they like to call me is radical,

04:59I believe is common sense.

05:05I believe that when a person gets sick,

05:08they shouldn't go bankrupt in the wealthiest country in the history of the world.

05:14Common sense.

05:17I believe that a minimum wage should cover the minimum cost to live.

05:24Common sense.

05:25And by the way, we should see that not paying a living wage

05:29is also a form of corporate welfare and looting.

05:33Because big companies like Walmart and Amazon

05:37often rely on the food stamp program and public coffers to cover the wages that they won't pay.

05:47I believe that homes are not slot machines for investors and Wall Street.

05:55I believe that to extort working families out of every last dollar that they have.

06:03A home is sacred.

06:05And when your landlord jacks up your rent by half overnight,

06:10or housing prices skyrocket because Wall Street treats our housing market like a casino,

06:16your government should fight for your ability to keep an affordable roof over your head.

06:22And finally, I believe our elected officials should take on abuses of corporate greed

06:29everywhere they find it.

06:32We must get big money out of politics and make clear that our country is not for sale.

06:40And that is why I don't and never will take money from lobbyists and corporations.

06:47Funny how Republicans adopt that populist rhetoric during the campaign cycle

06:50and then turn around and call Democrats radicals for saying the same stuff,

06:54albeit in good faith, the rest of the time.

06:57If ever you needed to disabuse yourself of the notion that Republicans are working for regular

07:01people, watching Trump and Musk in office right now makes that abundantly clear.

07:06And just one point of personal privilege here.

07:09I make it a point not to really talk about myself,

07:11because these videos are not about me, they're about all of us.

07:14But when I was in high school, there was a social studies teacher who I loved.

07:18I won't say his name, but he reminds me now a lot of Bernie Sanders.

07:23He had a Ralph Nader bumper sticker on his car.

07:25He was real anti-establishment type.

07:28He was the kind of teacher who'd been there forever, right?

07:31He was synonymous with the school itself.

07:33In my senior year, I signed up for some class in the middle of the semester

07:37In my senior year, I signed up for some class just because he was the teacher.

07:43But that same year he was diagnosed with late stage cancer,

07:46I believe either liver or pancreatic cancer, but something you just don't come back from.

07:52And so I remember him coming to exactly one class that year.

07:56And clear as day, I remember him telling us to take out our notebooks and write the word

07:59oligarchy.

08:01And that was the only word we wrote that day.

08:02It was the only word we would write from him in that entire class.

08:07He would basically go on that day to do a 40 minute lecture about a problem

08:11that all the way back in 2007 was already becoming apparent.

08:15And he would only live a few more months after that.

08:18And it was crushing, not only because he was an institution in that school,

08:24but because he was a great teacher who had, you know, a huge impact on my life.

08:28And it's a weird full circle moment for me because,

08:31you know, that teacher was in large part why I became interested in politics.

08:34And the very last thing that he taught my class was about one of

08:38the preeminent issues of our time.

08:40It's an issue that I'm going to do everything in my power to fight right now.

08:44The dangers of oligarchy were obviously important enough for him to spend his

08:47only day in class warning us about it.

08:49So, you know, I'll do my part as small as it may be to make sure that

08:53as many people as possible know exactly why.

09:04The subscribe button will be right here on the screen.

09:07But second, the reality is that we're now in a political environment

09:10where this administration can lean on any of the social media platforms

09:13to suppress certain voices if they don't like critical coverage.

09:16That means my longevity here is in the hands of a few tech billionaires

09:20who are already making it clear that they're willing to cater to this White House.

09:23To that end, signing up for my newsletter is a great way for me

09:26to be able to reach you directly if that ever becomes necessary.

09:29I'll put the link on the screen as well.

09:31So please sign up.

09:32It's completely free, but there's also an option to do a paid subscription

09:35if you'd like to support my work.

09:36I really appreciate it.

09:38Thanks so much for watching.

Category

Transcript

Recommended