Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Adviser Challenges Tucker Carlson On Green New Deal

Lee Moran
Updated

An adviser to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Friday night told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson why a key part of the Green New Deal being proposed by left-leaning Democrats had been misinterpreted.

Robert Hockett, a Cornell University law professor, explained how a claim repeated in the conservative media that the deal ― which aims to render fossil fuels obsolete by 2030 ― wanted to completely replace air travel with rail travel was “being misunderstood.”

Carlson noted that the deal proposes “building out high-speed rail at a scale where air travel would stop becoming necessary.”

Hockett replied, “We are really talking about expanding optionality here, we are not talking about getting rid of anything, right?”

“We are talking about basically making it cost-effective to move into more modern forms of technology, more modern forms of production, which would then enable people actually cost-effectively to transition to that stuff,” Hockett added. “We are not talking about requiring anything or prohibiting anything. That’s sort of 1980s-style environmentalism.”

Hockett explained how the aim was really to obtain carbon neutrality. “Then good, then I’m glad, it’s nice to have a smart person on the show to explain this,” Carlson replied, in a tone that some people on social media have suggested was sarcastic.

The segment of the proposal that Carlson had been quoting came from a Green New Deal FAQ document that Ocasio-Cortez’s staff initially posted on her website and then removed, saying it had just been a draft. The final text of the resolution doesn’t include the phrase about air travel becoming no longer “necessary,” but does say it aims to “remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as is technologically feasible, including through investment in ... high-speed rail.”

Carlson also questioned Hockett about several other details in the since-removed FAQ, and he pushed back against them. The AOC adviser later told The Daily Caller he and Carlson had been discussing “different documents.”

Check out the interview here:

This story has been updated to include additional details about the documents Carlson and Hockett were quoting from, and to explain their discrepancies.

Related Coverage

Nancy Pelosi Nails What Donald Trump's Attacks On Democrats Are Really All About

Meghan McCain Invokes Cardi B To Send Scathing Message To The Trumps

Fox News' Chris Wallace Rips Republicans Outraged By Democratic Investigations

Bill Maher Breaks Down Why Republicans Are 'The Problem'

Also on HuffPost

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.