Stephen Colbert welcomed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to The Late Show on Monday night.
Colbert quizzed Ocasio-Cortez about her experience as the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, her first weeks there, and her reputation as a media virtuoso. They shared a couple of pints of Ben & Jerry’s Colbert-flavored Americone Dream ice cream. And they talked about the government shutdown.
Said Ocasio-Cortez: “The downside is that we’re not able to get to work so much at the beginning but the bright side is it gives us a lot more free time to make trouble.”
Replied Colbert: “Because you know what they say, idle hands are the devil’s legislative agenda.”
Ocasio-Cortez also talked about the lesson she gave to other members about using social media: “Rule No. 1 is to be authentic, to be yourself and don’t try to be anyone that you’re not. So don’t try to talk like a young kid if you’re not a young kid. Don’t post a meme if you don’t know what a meme is—that was literally my advice, and I said don’t talk like the Founding Fathers on Twitter.”
Asked Colbert of those established lawmakers who tell her to wait her turn because she’s a new member of Congress: “I want to ask this question in a respectful manner, knowing also that you’re from Queens, so you will understand this question. On a scale from zero to some, how many f**ks do you give?”
“I think it’s um….zero.”
Colbert also asked about her proposed 70% tax on rich folks: “I’m just curious, how would that work?”
Ocasio Cortez explained that the tax is on “your ten millionth and one dollar. So after you make ten million dollars in one year, your dollars after that start to get taxed at a much higher rate…At what level are we really just living in excess. And what kind of society do we want to live in? And do we want to live in a city where billionaires have their own personal UBER helipads? … This is not a new idea … Under Republican administration – Dwight Eisenhower – we had 90 percent marginal tax rates.”
