At a "Fight Oligarchy" event in Nampa, Idaho on Monday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) spoke about President Trump's criminal convictions.
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00:00It was all, I hope we see now, that it was all about manipulating the markets so that
00:10he could quietly enrich his friends who bought the dip before reversing it all in the morning.
00:16Boise, this is a matter of fact. Donald Trump is a criminal who was found guilty of 34 felony
00:29counts of fraud, liable for sexual abuse. Of course he's lying and abusing and manipulating
00:41the stock market to. When he talks about rapists and criminals, he should look in the mirror.
01:01But back to stocks. To be clear, I don't care what party you are, Democrat or Republican,
01:08it doesn't matter how powerful one is or the position that one holds. Members of Congress
01:14holding and trading individual stock is wrong. It is corrosive, it is destructive, and it needs
01:21to be banned.
01:27I'll give you another example of something that I found so surprising. Just this year, I happened
01:37to be named to the Energy and Commerce Committee in Congress.
01:42Now, this is one of the most powerful committees in all of Congress. It controls two-thirds of
01:49the American economy. Health care, energy, trade, technology, communications, manufacturing.
01:58And for years, lobbyists fought to keep me off that committee. Because they don't like what
02:06they don't control. And an interesting thing happened the day that the announcement went
02:15out that I was named to this committee. Our phones rang off the hook and our inboxes were
02:23flooded by every corporate lobbyist under the sun who suddenly wanted to be my best friend.
02:30But you know what, Boise? Because of your support, because of you all showing up, because you allow
02:38me to not take a dime in corporate money, you free me to say no. And we can free others to
02:48say no to. We have to free others to say no to. Because I've seen how these groups bully
02:57and intimidate members of Congress, threatening to take money away from them or spend it against
03:03them if they don't do what they want. And what they want is for our lives to be as expensive
03:08as possible on the lowest possible wage. And I want us all to understand that this constant
03:20pressure that we are feeling in our lives, of the water rising up to our throats, of the
03:26impossibility to afford anything easily, of the bitter divisions driven more by online algorithms
03:31and the truth, of the fear of speaking up or for being who we are in public, the crumbling of our rights
03:38and protections, understand that all of this right now is what it feels like to be governed by billionaires.