AOC: ‘Mass Unemployment in the United States Was a Choice’

EXCERPT:

OCASIO-CORTEZ: "Mass unemployment in the United States was a choice. We had policy options in front of us and we could have guaranteed payrolls in the United States of America to prevent any person from losing their job due to Coronavirus. And what did elected officials do? What did Mitch McConnell do? What did Donald Trump do? They chose not to do that. So these are not things that happen by accident. Unemployment is not happening by accident. If we face this precipice of mass evictions and foreclosures that is not an accident, it is a [indecipherable]. And we have to interrupt that [indecipherable]. We have to interject in that [indecipherable]. And that comes with ratcheting up political pressure, it comes with organizing. And the thing is when it comes to these rent strikes to echo what each and every one of you have said, is that people aren't striking because they don't feel like paying rent, people are striking because they can't pay rent. They can't. It doesn't matter how many threatening text messages a landlord or a building sends to their tenants, it doesn't matter how much you threaten legal action, it doesn't matter how much you intimidate anybody, people can't pay. You cannot coerce someone into doing something that they cannot do. There is no money in the bank. People need to feed their kids. We cannot be evicting we need to be making sure that we are passing policy that allows people to stay in their homes. That is what we have to do."