AOC Says ‘We Lost Over One 9/11’s Worth of People’ Because Of Lack of Federal Action On COVID-19

On MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” Tuesday, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez encouraged her congressional colleagues to be more aggressive in their response to the coronavirus crisis.

AOC complained about what she insisted were inadequacies in the bill and likened death count to 9/11 in terms of the number of lives lost due to coronavirus.

 

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‘We lost over one 9/11’s worth of people due to this lack of action’

“[T]his small bill, while something may be better than nothing — it is happening in the context of Congress having gone on recess for a month,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We are going to pass a small-potatoes bill, and then we are talking about recessing again until May 4. And if we are going to bring every member or call back almost every member who can back to D.C. to pass a small incremental bill with the knowledge that we are not coming back until next month again, that’s two rent checks.”

“And the last time we left, again, we lost over one 9/11’s worth of people due to this lack of action,” AOC continued. “And so we really need to acknowledge that this small bill — again, while something is better than nothing, and frankly, Democrats fought very, very hard to get basic things like testing. Republicans didn’t want to fund hospitals.  They didn’t want to fund mass testing, which is what is going to allow us to reopen the economy.”

 

‘Thousands of people are dying every day, and we’re talking about going back’

“I appreciate the stride that they made in that but ultimately in voting on the text of this bill knowing that we are abdicating our responsibility,” the Democratic congresswoman added. “We haven’t legislated for a month, and thousands of people are dying. Thousands of people are dying every day, and we’re talking about going back.”

 

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“And every time we pass one of these bills, we’re hearing the real solution is coming in the next bill, and the next bill and the next bill,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “At some point, we have to raise our hands and say, ‘When is the solution coming?’ Because two months of rent are going to pass by before we are entertaining a real bill.”

“We’re talking about the scope of mass displacement in the United States of America,” she finished.