President Donald Trump slammed the Green New Deal on Monday night during his first campaign rally of 2019, likening it to a "high school term paper that got a low mark."
"Too many Democrats are focused on tearing down their opposition instead of building up our country," Trump told the El Paso, Texas crowd. "They are trying to impose some of the most extreme measures and policies ever put forward by our Congress ... I don't think anybody in this room wants to pay 70, 80, 90, and 95 percent tax."
He went on to specifically target the Green New Deal resolution, a 14-page economic stimulus plan released last Thursday by self-described democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D., Mass.) that aims to fight income inequality and climate change. The crowd booed when he mentioned the proposal and then cheered when he said, "It sounds like a high school term paper that got a low mark."
"It would shut down American energy, which I don't think the people of Texas are going to be happy with that," Trump said. "It would shut down a little thing called air travel. How do you take a train to Europe?"
He then mocked "whacky" Sen. Mazie Hirono (D., Hawaii), a cosponsor of the Green New Deal, for her support of it. He referenced her response to part of the resolution, which proposes getting rid of all air travel within 10 years and building "high speed rail at a scale" that would replace air travel.
"That would be pretty hard for Hawaii," Hirono said.
Trump further went after the deal for proposing drastic changes to the U.S. economy while ignoring the environmental impacts of China and the world's "real polluters."
"While the world's real polluters like China would get many of our companies and factories, they just move into China and move into other parts of the world. That's the way the system works. It's not going to happen," he said.
Monday wasn't the first time the president derided the Green New Deal. After it was released last week, Trump mocked it on Twitter by sarcastically calling it "brilliant."
"I think it is very important for the Democrats to press forward with their Green New Deal," Trump tweeted. "It would be great for the so-called "Carbon Footprint" to permanently eliminate all Planes, Cars, Cows, Oil, Gas & the Military - even if no other country would do the same. Brilliant!"
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1094375749279248385
Ocasio-Cortez pushed back on Twitter Monday night by tweeting, "A man who can’t even read briefings written in full sentences is providing literary criticism of a House Resolution."
Ah yes, a man who can’t even read briefings written in full sentences is providing literary criticism of a House Resolution.
('Reading the intelligence book is not Trump’s preferred ‘style of learning,’ according to a person with knowledge of the situation."
- @washingtonpost) https://t.co/O7daeYlXZO— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 12, 2019