Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said late Monday that an economic system that allows billionaires is “immoral.”
“I do think that a system that allows billionaires to exist when there are parts of Alabama where people are still getting ringworm because they don’t have access to public health is wrong,” Ocasio-Cortez told late-night host Stephen Colbert on CBS’s “The Late Show,” according to the New York Post.
{mosads}She added that she doesn’t think all billionaires are immoral.
“It’s not to say someone like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet are immoral people,” she said. “I don’t believe that.”
The rising Democratic star has championed progressive ideas including the Green New Deal, which aims to create a plan to get the U.S. on a 100 percent renewable energy electric grid.
Shortly after the midterm elections, she engaged in a sit-in at now-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office with activists to protest in favor of the plan’s establishment.
Colbert late Monday pressed Ocasio-Cortez on the backlash from some Democrats who tell her to “wait your turn” and “don’t make waves.”
“I want to ask this question in a respectful manner, knowing also that you’re from Queens, so you will understand this question. On a scale from zero to some, how many f—s do you give?” he asked.
“I think it’s zero,” she responded.