There's a window of opportunity for a left-wing nominee that may not come again for a generation. Democratic-socialist and liberal victories in New York City and elsewhere - with potentially more this fall - have changed the political playing field.
AOC delivered a tentative, stumbling response to a question about Taiwan during a panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference on Friday. The moment went viral and prompted a blizzard of jabs from critics of the star Democratic congresswoman. But on Tuesday's edition of CNN NewsNight, Phillip contrasted AOC's performance with a series of Trump gaffes. Acknowledging AOC's flub, Phillip asked if those same critics should also direct their jabs at the actual president of the United States.
All I said to people who say, you have this tension, we didn't have any attention. All I said is, if you want to be a legislator and pass bills, it's important to have the votes to do it. It doesn't help to go online and criticize the people that you want to have because they're not as progressive as you are. She's been a star, eloquent, forceful, and the rest. And she gets along very well with Hakeem Jeffries. They have a New York connection, but I'm so glad she's here.
The president has been acting in increasingly erratic ways. It is really damning when we think about the degree to which media outlets reported on Joe Biden, yet we are seeing behavior from Trump that is alarming and everyone is pretending this is normal. For our global partners, what they also see is the result of not just one man but the entire government apparatus and a party that is willing to watch someone decompensate in front of the world and do nothing about it.
I would not say that assassinating a young mother of three in the street is part of ICE's mandate! ICE specifically has a mandate that has nothing to do with going after U.S. citizens. Watch the video for yourself. You don't have to worry about the foo, you know, the politics with me or what I'm going to say or what anyone else is going to say.
"I know this time is terrifying for so many people, and it feels hard to know where your place is, especially in politics, where it feels like people in both parties are blaming you for everything that's happening. I just want you to know that they couldn't be more wrong. You are fine just the way you are, and, in a time when it's hard to know who stands with you, I want you to know that I stand with you, and everyone who wants to be mean shouldn't be mean around me."
Chuck Schumer took so much heat in March when they passed a clean CR. And he's so worried about AOC challenging him and losing control of his Senate Democratic conference that he's trying to show. I mean, he even updated his glasses to show that he is hip and, you know, feisty now. But it's absurd. The whole thing is performative, Lawler said.
For what it's worth, Ocasio-Cortez later recorded a video saying she carries no bias against short men - or "the short king community," as she put it - and that she was primarily referring to "how big or small someone is on the inside." But the fundamental point in the viral clip - that anti-authoritarian movements can benefit from making a mockery of that which seeks to be menacing - is a point that historians and experts on authoritarianism have also made.
President Donald Trump lampooned Democrats on Tuesday, saying the party, with politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jasmine Crockett, is in rough shape heading into the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election. They're just terrible people. They don't have a bench, Trump said during an interview on CNN pundit Scott Jennings' radio show. The president mocked AOC, saying the New York representative speaks like a little mouse which is why Democratic leaders are keeping her away from microphones lately, he added.
