New US Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez calls Trump 'racist'
Freshman US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called President Donald Trump a racist, saying the Republican leader has utilized coded language used by white supremacists.
Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, made the comments during an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday.
Trump "certainly didn't invent racism. But he's certainly given a voice to it and expanded it and created a platform for those things," said Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York City.
"Do you believe President Trump is a racist?" the news program’s moderator asked. "Yeah, yeah, no question," she replied.
"When you look at the words that he uses, which are historic dog whistles of white supremacy. When you look at how he reacted to the Charlottesville incident where neo-Nazis murdered a woman, versus how he manufactures crises like immigrants seeking legal refuge on our borders, it's night and day," she continued.
Thousands of white supremacists, KKK members and neo-Nazis descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, for a “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017. The march soon turned violent after a 20-year-old man plowed his vehicle into a group of anti-hate demonstrators protesting against the white supremacist rally, killing a woman and injuring 20 others.
Trump first blamed the violence "on many sides", but after pressure against him piled up, he declared that “racism is evil.”
Human rights experts have warned that Trump’s divisive rhetoric has led to rising racism and xenophobia in the United States.
Ocasio-Cortez, who was sworn in to her first term in the lower chamber of Congress last week, is known for her outspoken criticism of Trump and the Republican Party.
Following Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib's use of profanity last week in calling for Trump's impeachment, Ocasio-Cortez defended Tlaib and said removing Trump is "an issue that she's passionate about."
"I certainly think it's a valid question, and it's one that a lot of voters were interested in having in the run-up to the election," Ocasio-Cortez told CNN. "It's a legitimate discussion to have."
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