Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: I’m ‘a consensus builder’, not ‘a flamethrower’

“I like to think that I’m persuasive,” the New York Democrat, who is a Democratic Socialist, said. “And so I think a lot of what work is gonna be on building relationships and trying to persuade and talk to my colleagues on building a progressive agenda for the party.”

Since she toppled 10-term incumbent former Rep. Joe Crowley in their June primary election, Ocasio-Cortez, 29, has gained a reputation for bucking tradition, including declining corporate political action committee donations and making demands of now-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as an incoming freshman congresswoman. For example, she pushed Pelosi to create the House Select Committee on Climate Change. Since the new Congress was seated last week, she has also refused to support House Democratic leadership-proposed rules that would continue to require that any increase to entitlement spending be met with mandatory cuts or tax hikes.

While Ocasio-Cortez is uncomfortable with the “flamethrower” nomenclature, she welcomed being called “a radical” because “it only has ever been radicals that have changed this country.”

“Abraham Lincoln made the radical decision to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. Franklin Delano Roosevelt made the radical decision to embark on establishing programs like Social Security,” she said.

Although Ocasio-Cortez rarely mentions President Trump, she didn’t hesitate to condemn the current occupant of the White House as a “racist.”

“The president certainly didn’t invent racism. But he’s certainly given a voice to it, and expanded it, and created a platform for those things,” she said. “When you look at the words that he uses, which are historic dog whistles of white supremacy. When you look at how he reacted to the Charlottesville incident, where neo-Nazis murdered a woman, versus how he manufactures crises like immigrants seeking legal refuge on our borders, it’s — it’s night and day.”