Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez expressed that young people are appalled by the violence and loss of life, emphasizing the impact on Gaza and the responsibility to prevent genocide.
She also suggested that President Biden is the strongest Democratic candidate, and highlighted her commitment to expanding people’s movements.
Meanwhile, President Biden faced interruptions at an abortion rights rally due to critiques of his administration’s handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict.
“Do you agree with that word, genocide, that the president has been supporting a genocide, or does that go too far?” NBC’s Kristen Welker asked.
“I think what we are seeing right now throughout the country is that young people are appalled at the violence and the indiscriminate loss of life. We are not just seeing 25,000 people that have died in Gaza. We are seeing the starvation of — of millions of people, the displacement of over 2 million Gazans. We have South Africa that has mounted a court in the ICJ. The ICJ ruled this week that Israel has a grave responsibility to prevent genocide,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“I believe they are still determining it, but in the interim ruling, the fact that they said there’s a responsibility to prevent it. The fact that this word is even in play. The fact that this word is even in our discourse, I think demonstrates the mass inhumanity that Gazans are facing, and so, whether you are an individual that believes this is a genocide, which by the way, in our polling we are seeing large amounts of Americans concerned specifically with that word, so I don’t think that it is something to completely toss someone out of our public discourse for using,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
“I think what we have right now, what we’ve seen in New Hampshire, he is virtually the nominee of the party. His turnout in New Hampshire is actually not something to ignore. We saw from a write-in campaign, remember, President Biden wasn’t even on the ballot in New Hampshire,” she said. “He won overwhelmingly, with turnout that even exceeded Obama 2012 turnout, when Obama was on the ballot.”
“I see my role overall as really trying to expand the power of movements in the United States of America,” she said.
“We’ve been in contact with the Biden administration throughout my term and throughout his term as well,” she said. “I think what is most important is that, and in terms of my role, I think my role is in allegiance to people’s movements across this country.”
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