AOC defends comment about billionaires while visiting Chicago

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) emphasized the importance of the working class and criticized a system that allows billionaires to flourish in a talk she gave Friday night at the University of Chicago Friday.

The New York City progressive began her 90-minute conversation with political strategist David Axelrod by addressing a comment she made on Thursday that “you can’t earn a billion dollars” legitimately. The five-term congresswoman offered clarification by saying she opposes systems that create billionaires, not individual people.

“When we criticize the system, the system has gotten so concentrated that [billionaires] take it as criticism of themselves,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We need to revisit the tax systems that we have already had in the history of our country, because when it comes to tax it is not just about money, but it is about the construction and organization of oligarchy in our economy.”

University of Chicago law student Mark Maddock, 26, said he hopes the congresswoman will run for president in two years.

“Everything's so rough and everyone's a bit downtrodden with the political climate around us right now, so having her here kind of feels like a preview of some hope to come,” Maddock said. “I'm from a rural part of Illinois where our representation doesn't really give as much of a damn about us, as she seems to.”

When asked about her 2028 ambitions for the U.S. Senate or presidency, Ocasio-Cortex said: "Presidents come and go. Senate house seats, elected officials come and go, but single-parent health care is forever."

Ocasio-Cortez condemned the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision striking down a Democratic gerrymandered voting map that state voters passed last month.

“We are in an era of a very real constitutional crises about the limits of power,” she said. “I don’t think we should take this siting down.”

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court tightened restrictions on a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that prohibits voting practices that result in minority groups having “less opportunity” than others when electing representatives. In its 6-3 decision divided on party lines, the court said the provision only applies to instances of strong evidence that a racial group was discriminated against, not in cases where officials merely want to create more majority-minority districts.

Ocasio-Cortez said she would “absolutely” support further gerrymandering in her state.

Between commenting on political issues, Ocasio-Cortez shared personal stories of her family and work life before she became a “commodified symbol” as a famous politician.

When she spoke about her interest in studying science before she decided not to go to medical school for economic reasons, Axelrod told Ocasio-Cortez she is "kind of a nerd” and “should feel at home at the University of Chicago.”

Friday night's conversation was part of a series coordinated by the University of Chicago’s nonpartisan Institute of Politics, which hosted former Vice President Mike Pence last week.