Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is expressing fears should be wind up behind bars.
The New York congresswoman sat down for an interview with New York Magazine’s Kara Swisher and was asked, “What happens to you if Donald Trump wins? What do you do? What’s your first move?”
“I mean, it sounds nuts, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy threw me in jail,” Ocasio-Cortez responded.
Swisher asked, “Really?”
“He’s out of his mind. I mean, he did his whole first campaign around lock her up. This is his motto,” the progressive star answered.
Swisher acknowledged, “Oh, he didn’t say that. He said, he didn’t say that.”
“I take him at his word. I take him at his word. I take him at his word when he says that he’s going to round up people. I take him at his word when he threatens journalists, I take him at his word, I feel like what we saw in his first presidency was an amuse-bouche to what his intentions are,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “He has learned from his mistakes of appointing professionals, and he will not make that mistake next time.”
Ocasio-Cortez was not the only public figure to express concern about locked away somewhere.
On Monday, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow had CNN’s media reporter on her show who noted, “Trump and his allies are openly talking about weaponizing the government to seek revenge against critics in media and politics, with some of his extremist allies even talking about jailing their fellow Americans.”
“You’re one of his most notable critics on television. Are you worried that you could be a target?” he asked.
Maddow responded, “I’m worried about the country broadly if we put someone in power who is openly avowing that he plans to build camps to hold millions of people, and to ‘root out’ what he’s described in subhuman terms as his ‘enemy from within.’ Again, history is helpful here. He’s not joking when he says this stuff, and we’ve seen what happens when people take power proclaiming that kind of agenda.”
“I think there’s a little bit of head-in-the-sand complacency that Trump only intends to go after individual people he has already singled out. Do you really think he plans to stop at well-known liberals?” she continued. It also seems pretty clear that some people in politics might think they’ll be on the safe side — that they might even benefit from it — if they side with Trump. Ask Mike Pence about how that works out in the end.”
Finally, Maddow said, “For that matter, what convinces you that these massive camps he’s planning are only for migrants? So, yes, I’m worried about me — but only as much as I’m worried about all of us.”