At a "Fight Oligarchy Tour' event in Salt Lake City, Utah on Sunday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) spoke about Utah's Republican members of Congress.
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00:00But to get there, we must be honest about how we got to where we are right now, because
00:09this moment didn't come out of nowhere. It has been a long time coming. The destruction
00:18of our rights and our democracy is directly tied to the growing and extreme wealth inequality
00:27that has been building in America for years. It is not a coincidence that billionaires like
00:39Elon Musk dumped billions into this election to elect Donald Trump. And he sure isn't doing
00:53it out of charity. For years, we have known that our political system has slowly but surely
01:01become dominated by big money and billionaires. And time after time, we've seen how our government
01:10and laws are more responsive to lobbyists than to the will of everyday people.
01:17And we also know that the agenda of dark money to keep wages low and loot our public goods
01:28to give to the rich is deeply unpopular with the people of all parties. But just look at
01:39what Republicans have been quietly doing in Congress, voting to advance cuts on hundreds
01:46of billions of dollars from Medicaid and veterans benefits so that they can take that money and give
01:56it to the billionaires in the form of tax cuts and sweetheart deals to billionaires in companies
02:04like SpaceX. And you know who from Utah voted for that, by the way? Both of your senators, Mike
02:11Lee and John Curtis. And Salt Lake City's own House members, Blake Moore and Celeste Malloy. And they know, Utah, that that's not what you want. They know that it is deeply unpopular. They know that it hurts working families from Utah. But they know that it hurts working families from Utah.
02:32But they know that they are not there to serve the working class. They are there to serve the working class. They are there to serve themselves and the billionaires who paid them. But they know, they also know that the only chance they have to get away with such an unpopular agenda is to stoke deep division.