AOC slams 'reckless' Trump for 'taking a wrecking ball' to Americans’ 'lifelines'

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and the Democratic party remain “resolved” during the Trump administration so far, she told NPR host Steve Inskeep in an interview that aired Friday.

As a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, Ocasio-Cortez recently ran into a controversy with Trump Border Czar Tom Homan after she held an online forum informing constituents of their rights. “I was informing all of my constituents of their constitutional protections, and in particular, their constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure in the United States,” she said.

Homan threatened to report her to the Department of Justice, which is headed by Trump loyalist Pam Bondi. Ocasio-Cortez said she had not heard from the DOJ, but after the interview, she sent a letter asking Bondi “yielded to political pressure trying to weaponize the agency against elected officials whose speech they disagree with.”

READ MORE: Historian calls out Trump’s Ukraine 'protection racket': 'Not a lot of diplomatic thought here'

Inskeep asked Ocasio-Cortez whether she or fellow Democrats are feeling “intimidated or silenced.”

“I’m not,” she said. “I think it's important to call this administration's bluff. I think that this is what authoritarians do. I think this is what kleptocracies do. They rely on the illusion of power.”

She also said voters are growing frustrated with the government because "everything feels increasingly like a scam, that not only are grocery prices going up, but it's like everything has a fee and a surcharge. And I think that anger is put out at government."

Inskeep asked whether she would like a president who went in to “break some china and mess things up,” but differently.

READ MORE: 'The damage' is 'immense': Attorneys for man accused by Mace demand evidence — or an apology

“No, I don't want someone being reckless. I actually don't want someone taking a wrecking ball to someone's chemotherapy to just see what happens,” she said.

“Now, I do think that we can examine certain things, like Medicare Advantage, that I think is a scam, that in the name of so-called efficiency, ironically enough, we have handed over huge amounts of healthcare disbursements to private insurers who are pocketing it. Sure, yeah, let's go after that. But I don't think we just destroy everything that we have worked so hard for as a country to become innovative, to become just, to have some of the only lifelines that people have in this country to a roof over their head or food in their children's stomach. No, I don't think that we gamble with that,” she said.