Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says Congress 'never stops being scandalizing' and members are 'susceptible to groupthink'

"It's a fascinating psychological moment that you're watching unfold," she said about negotiations on Biden's infrastructure and spending plans.

• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called Congress a "shit show" in an interview with the New Yorker.
• The lawmaker pointed to the negotiations of Biden's infrastructure and social spending packages last year.
• "It's a fascinating psychological moment that you're watching unfold," she said.

Rep. Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez did not mince words when describing what she thinks about her workplace, Congress.

"Honestly, it is a shit show," the New York Democrat told the New Yorker in an interview published Monday. "It's scandalizing, every single day. What is surprising to me is how it never stops being scandalizing."

"Some folks perhaps get used to it, or desensitized to the many different things that may be broken, but there is so much reliance on this idea that there are adults in the room, and, in some respect, there are," she continued. "But sometimes to be in a room with some of the most powerful people in the country and see the ways that they make decisions — sometimes they're just susceptible to groupthink, susceptible to self-delusion."

Ocasio-Cortez pointed out last year's negotiations of President Joe Biden's infrastructure legislation and his Build Back Better package as an example of what she views as dysfunction in Congress. Members of the Democrats' congressional progressive caucus, including Ocasio-Cortez, wanted Congress to pass both bills together, to avoid a possible scenario of one collapsing.

"The infrastructure plan, if it does what it's intended to do, politicians will take credit for it ten years from now," Ocasio-Cortez told the New Yorker. "But the Build Back Better Act is the vast majority of Biden's agenda. The infrastructure plan, as important as it is, is much smaller. So we were talking about pairing these two things together."

The bipartisan infrastructure plan, which included $1 trillion in investments to improve the country's roads, bridges, highways, as well as expand broadband connections and access to clean drinking water, passed the Senate in August. But the bill stalled in the House for months afterward because of intra-party feuding. Moderate Democrats sought to hold a vote on the infrastructure legislation first, then later continue talks on Build Back Better, the nearly $2 trillion social and climate spending plan, which drew much debate on its size and scope. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a key negotiator on the infrastructure package in the Senate, urged the House to pass the bill alone. Progressive Democrats, meanwhile, insisted on both packages getting passed at the same time. 

"The Progressive Caucus puts up a fight, and then somewhere around October there comes a critical juncture. The president is then under enormous pressure from the media. There's this idea that the president can't 'get things done,' and that his presidency is at risk. It's what I find to be just a lot of sensationalism," Ocasio-Cortez told the New Yorker. "However, the ramifications of that were being very deeply felt. And you have people running tough races, and it's 'he needs a win.' And so I'm sitting there in a group with some of the most powerful people in the country talking about how, if we pass the infrastructure bill right now, then this will be what the President can campaign on."

Ultimately, in November, the House passed the bipartisan infrastructure package, with 13 Republicans joining most Democrats. Six Democrats, including Ocasio-Cortez, voted against the bill. 

"People really just talk themselves into thinking that passing the infrastructure plan on that day, in that week, is the most singular important decision of the presidency, more than voting rights, more than the Build Back Better Act itself, which contains the vast majority of the president's actual plan," Ocasio-Cortez told the New Yorker. "You're kind of sitting there in the room and watching people work themselves up into a decision. It's a fascinating psychological moment that you're watching unfold."

Weeks later, the House passed Build Back Better along party lines. Yet the bill has failed in the Senate, largely because of Manchin's opposition, where it will need every vote from the Democratic caucus. Biden has supported ideas to break the sweeping bill into "chunks" to get approval. Manchin earlier this month said talks on the Build Back Better package are currently "dead" but he opened the door to future negotiations.