Tuesday during a press conference on Washington D.C., 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey’s (D-MA) so-called Green New Deal was “the same” as the 1969 moon landing.

Gillibrand said, “Congress has to take this crisis seriously. We need to treat climate change like the existential threat that it is. We need to pass a Green New Deal. This should be our nations’ Moon shot. When John F. Kennedy said, ‘Let’s put a man on the Moon in the next ten years not because it’s easy but because it’s hard,’ he didn’t know whether he could put a man on the Moon but he knew it was something worth fighting for.”

She continued, “He knew it was a goal and ambition that he wanted to take on, one he was unwilling to not, something that would measure how great we are as a country. This is the same. We don’t know if we can get to net zero carbon emissions in ten years, but we should certainly try. Why not this be a measure of how great we are as a nation? Why not this be a measure of how innovative and entrepreneurial and capable our scientists and engineers are? Why not be the world leader in doing something extraordinary and showing what this country is made of? That’s what this opportunity is. To be a measure of our success. To show, just like John F. Kennedy did, that we can win.”

(h/t Grabien)

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