Conservative commentator Paris Dennard on Wednesday described Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) as the “gift that keeps on giving” for Republicans.
“She’s the gift that keeps on giving because I think she just says things that are just so outlandish,” Dennard, who is a former CNN commentator, told Hill.TV’s Buck Sexton and Krystal Ball on “Rising.”
Dennard was referring to recent comments from Ocasio-Cortez, in which she said that an economic system that allows billionaires is “immoral.”
In an appearance Monday on Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” on CBS, Ocasio-Cortez said it is “wrong” to have a system that allows billionaires while some don’t have access to public health care.
“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,” the freshman congresswoman said.
Dennard pushed back on those comments, defending the free enterprise market in the U.S., saying Ocasio-Cortez was “shameful” for calling it immoral.
“The free enterprise system that we have here in America is the best system. It is a system that allows for a thriving middle class,” he said. “It’s the system that has so many people trying to get to this country be a part of it. So the benefits that she’s reaping, is because of this system. It’s shameful to call it immoral.”
Democratic strategist Andrew Feldman responded to Dennard, saying Ocasio-Cortez’s larger message is that the economic system in the U.S. is not working for all Americans.
“The ultimate point she’s making about how the economy isn’t working for everyone, is absolutely true,” Feldman, founder of Feldman Strategies, said. “It is not working for people that are struggling from the trade war in the Midwest, who are soybean farmers.”
“The system is not working for many Americans who are being left behind right now, regardless of how she says it,” he said.
— Julia Manchester
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