Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) responded to President Trump denouncing socialism in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. In an appearance on MSNBC shortly after, Ocasio-Cortez said Trump is "losing on the issues" and that is why he made an "ad hominem" attack on socialism. She said he attacked socialism and tied it to Venezuela as a way to "confuse the public."



"What did you make of the president's aggressive statement about Venezuela tonight, and he talked about being a socialist country and how we're never going to be a socialist country. It was pretty truculent but it tied the notion of socialism to that particular regime. What do you think about the president, why he did that?" MSNBC's Chris Matthews asked.



"I think that he needs to do it because he feels like -- he feels himself losing on the issues," Ocasio-Cortez said. "Every single policy proposal that we have adopted and presented to the American public has been overwhelmingly popular, even some with a majority of Republican voters supporting what we're talking about."



"I think he sees himself losing on the issues, he sees himself losing on the wall in the southern border, and he needs to grasp at an ad hominem attack and this is his way of doing it," the Congresswoman said. "What we need to realize is happening is this is an issue of authoritarian regime versus democracy. In order for him to try to dissuade or throw people off the scent of the trail, he has to really make and confuse the public. And I think that that's exactly what he's trying to do."





