Sen. Dianne Feinstein is facing new criticism after a video went viral Friday showing her dismissive response to a group of young activists asking her to support the Green New Deal.

“You come in here and you say ‘it has to be my way or the highway.’ I don’t respond to that,” Feinstein told about a dozen kids who visited her San Francisco office Friday morning. “I’ve gotten elected, I just ran, I was elected by almost a million-vote plurality, and I know what I’m doing.”

Her comments — captured in a video posted online by the Sunrise Movement, an environmental activist group — immediately struck a match with supporters of the Green New Deal, the wide-ranging policy proposal that would invest billions of dollars in clean energy technology in an attempt to stave off the impact of climate change.

More than 1.8 million people had viewed the video of the meeting on Twitter as of Friday evening.

This is how @SenFeinstein reacted to children asking her to support the #GreenNewDeal resolution — with smugness + disrespect. This is a fight for our generation's survival. Her reaction is why young people desperately want new leadership in Congress. pic.twitter.com/0zAkaxruMI — Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) February 22, 2019

“My phone has been blowing up,” Isha Clarke, a 16-year-old from Oakland who was in the meeting with Feinstein, said in an interview. “I think that Feinstein needs to take an introspective look at her values and realize that her job is to listen to the people, even if those people can’t vote.”

About 100 people had come to a rally outside of Feinstein’s downtown San Francisco office building — including students whose classes were cancelled due to the Oakland Unified School District’s teachers strike this week. After the rally ended, the senator’s staff invited Clarke and several other kids and activists upstairs for an impromptu meeting, she said.

A full video of the ten-minute interaction posted on Facebook showed that the discussion got tense almost as soon as Feinstein walked out of her office.

“There’s no way to pay for it,” Feinstein said, adding, “That resolution will not pass the Senate, and you can take that back to whoever sent you here.”

“There’s tons of money going to the military,” one kid responded, while another reminded her that their generation would bear the brunt of climate change’s impact. Several unrolled a letter they had written her on a large poster, which included a drawing of a dog.

But Feinstein, her arms folded during part of the discussion, told students she opposed the Green New Deal and was pushing for her own resolution on climate change that she said would have a better chance of passing.

At one point, Clarke told Feinstein, “We’re the people who voted (for) you, you’re supposed to listen to us.”

“How old are you?” Feinstein asked. When Clarke said she was 16, the senator responded, “Well, you didn’t vote for me.”

At the end of the meeting, Clarke asked how she could intern for Feinstein, and the senator immediately offered her an internship.

In a statement released Friday night, Feinstein called the meeting a “spirited discussion.”

“I want the children to know they were heard loud and clear,” she said. “I have been and remain committed to doing everything I can to enact real, meaningful climate change legislation.”

Feinstein was re-elected in 2018, defeating a more liberal challenger, State Sen. Kevin de León.

“The dismissiveness we saw is a clear example of why so many young people have been disillusioned with politics,” said Morissa Zuckerman, a 24-year-old activist with the Sunrise Movement who was also present at the meeting, in an interview.

The Green New Deal has become a cause célèbre among liberals in the two weeks since it was introduced in Congress. It has the support of Feinstein’s California colleague Sen. Kamala Harris, as well as multiple other Democratic presidential candidates.

But Feinstein’s blunt response to the proposal isn’t exactly out of character. During her first statewide election campaign in 1990, she made headlines for declaring her support for the death penalty in the face of furious Democratic activists at the state party’s convention. More recently, she shrugged off boos and jeers at town halls in 2017 from those who thought she wasn’t tough enough on President Donald Trump.

The image of Feinstein facing the kids ricocheted around the internet, drawing condemnation from California liberals — as well as support from others who saw the senator as simply explaining political realities.

“Climate change is real, and we won’t survive what’s coming unless EVERYONE is part of the conversation,” De León tweeted Friday night, without directly mentioning the controversy.

Clarke said she was disappointed with her senator but ready to double down on her activism.

“I’ve started to realize that I can no longer sit back and let adults do the work because they’re messing up,” the 16-year-old said. “I’ve thought about going into politics — but seeing how politicians work just really discourages me.”

The full video of the interaction, posted by the Sunrise Movement, is here: