In an interview, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez expressed concern that if Donald Trump wins in 2022, he may have her thrown in jail, citing his “Lock her up” slogan against Hillary Clinton.
She takes Trump’s rhetoric of threatening journalists and rounding people up seriously.
“I mean, it sounds nuts, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy threw me in jail,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “He’s out of his mind. I mean, he did his whole first campaign around ‘lock her up.’ This is his motto.”
“I take him at his word when he says that he’s going to round up people. I take him at his word when he threatens journalists. I take him at his word,” she said. “I feel like what we saw in his first presidency was an amuse-bouche to what his intentions are. He has learned from his mistakes of appointing professionals, and he will not make that mistake next time.”
While Trump said critics claiming he’d seek retribution are wrong, Ocasio-Cortez believes he still has a chance to win and it would threaten American democracy.
She supports Biden to prevent this outcome. Ocasio-Cortez acknowledged a lack of excitement for Biden among youth but says the solution is engagement in elections, not disengagement.
“Number one, they’re wrong,” Trump said. “It has to stop, because otherwise, we’re not going to have a country. Look, when this election is over, based on what they’ve done, I would have every right to go after them, and it’s easy, because it’s Joe Biden and you see all the criminality, all of the money that’s going into the family and him, all of this money from China, from Russia, from Ukraine.”
“Trump does absolutely have a chance to win. That is why I have thrown my support behind Biden early and I support it vociferously,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “It is unequivocal that if Donald Trump wins, we are looking at the potential dissolution of democracy in the United States of America and the question about what would happen to me or the Democratic Party is a joke compared to the question of what is going to happen to our country.”
“I think when it comes to presidential elections, and especially to young people, I understand the lack of support for President Biden. And I think the demoralization around the president has caused folks to sometimes tune out on down-ballot candidates that will actually advance more alignment with their interests. And so the answer here is to get into the game, not to get out of it,” she added.
Trump similarly dismissed claims of seeking “revenge” if elected again.
“These are bad people. These people are sick, and they do things that are so destructive… If it weren’t me, they’d be going after somebody else, and I know a lot of the competition,” Trump said. “They wouldn’t do so well.”