Ocasio-Cortez says Trump 'scared' after he vows America will 'never be a socialist country'

President Trump vowed during his State of the Union address on Tuesday that "America will never be a socialist country," in an apparent rebuke to self-described Democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders that drew loud cheers and a standing ovation from Republicans in the House chamber -- as well as supportive applause from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In response, Ocasio-Cortez told Fox News after the speech: “I thought it was great. I think he’s scared."
The progressive firebrand pointedly did not applaud as Trump praised an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, Elvin Hernandez, for breaking up a notorious human trafficking ring, and she often stared ahead expressionless during the president's remarks. In an interview later Tuesday night, Ocasio-Cortez said she was asking herself, "Is this a campaign stop or is this a State of the Union?"
Trump cited the economic decline and civil disorder in Venezuela as a cautionary tale, after his administration last week imposed sweeping sanctions against the regime of Nicolas Maduro.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., center, listens as President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The country's government in recent years limited citizens' access to foreign currency, implemented substantial subsidies and price controls on food and other items, and fell victim to sweeping corruption -- before effectively collapsing last month.
"Two weeks ago, the United States officially recognized the legitimate government of Venezuela, and its new interim president, Juan Guaido," Trump began. "We stand with the Venezuelan people in their noble quest for freedom -- and we condemn the brutality of the Maduro regime, whose socialist policies have turned that nation from being the wealthiest in South America into a state of abject poverty and despair.
BERNIE SANDERS ACKNOWLEDGES ECONOMY IS A 'DISASTER' IN VENEZUELA
"Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country," Trump continued, prompting boos from Republicans in the chamber. "America was founded on liberty and independence -- not government coercion, domination and control. We are born free, and we will stay free."

President Donald Trump arrives to deliver his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Then, after a prolonged chant of "USA" broke out, Trump concluded, "Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country."
Democrats largely remained seated as Republicans resumed the "USA" chant and applauded for several seconds. Sanders kept his head in his hand and grimaced, while Pelosi clapped in her seat.
Pelosi has already sparred publicly several times with Ocasio-Cortez, who sought last month to reject a Pelosi-backed rules package that would have effectively curbed some spending. Democratic leaders quashed that attempted revolt overwhelmingly. And Ocasio-Cortez last year personally joined environmentalist protesters conducting a sit-in at Pelosi's office.

"Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialst country."
— President Trump

The effective collapse of Venezuela has forced some far-left progressive Democrats into an awkward position. In a series of social media posts in January, Sanders -- who is considering another run for the White House -- acknowledged that "the economy is a disaster" in Venezuela, but he largely blamed the Maduro government for conducting what he called a "violent crackdown" on dissidents and the rule of law.
For her part, Ocasio-Cortez is set to unveil a massive "Green New Deal" with Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey next week, and on Monday she told her fellow representatives in a letter that the proposal calls for a "national, social, industrial and economic mobilization at a scale not seen since World War II."
Democratic leaders, including Pelosi, have not yet signed onto the expansive plan.

President Trump delivers his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, flanked by Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

The Green New Deal proposal would lead to national net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, according to Ocasio-Cortez's letter, “through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers,” while also generating millions of “good, high-wage jobs."
Through it all, the Green New Deal would additionally “promote justice and equity by preventing current and repairing historic oppression to frontline and vulnerable communities," according to Ocasio-Cortez.
Several analysts have cautioned that the liberal firebrand is in over her head, even though the as-yet vague and uncertain details about the Green New Deal render a precise calculation impossible. Physicist Christopher Clack has warned that the cost could easily be into the trillions.
“It’s a daunting task, and I’m not sure that the authors of the Green New Deal fully comprehend how much they’ll need,” Clack said in an interview with The Hill.
Institute for Energy Research president Tom Pyle was more blunt: “One hundred percent renewable energy defies the laws of physics. It would be impossible to achieve.”
And Paul Bledsoe, a strategic adviser at the Progressive Policy Institute, said progressives were overcompensating. “I understand the value of aspirational goals,” Bledsoe said. “My personal view is, that undermines the credibility of the effort.”
Nevertheless, some 70 Democratic lawmakers have so far tentatively endorsed a Green New Deal plan, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris, both of whom are looking at 2020 presidential campaigns.

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Ex-WH staffer Cliff Sims: Leaks of Trump’s schedule 'disgraceful,' either serve the president or quit

The former White House staffer who raised the ire of President Donald Trump recently by writing a tell-all book about his time in the administration surprisingly sided with the president Monday in blasting a recent White House leak.
Chris Sims, author of the book “Team of Vipers,” said on the “Todd Starnes Show” that the leak of Trump's private schedules was “disgraceful.”
“I mean, imagine working in a place where you can't know if everything, like everything, you say may end up in the press. Everything you do may end up in the press, every kind of internal conversation about me, or whatever it is. You can't trust anybody and that's kind of the atmosphere in there,” Sims told Todd Starnes.
He added, “This one in particular, I think, is particularly disgraceful because it was purposefully done in a way that would portray the president as not working hard. There are a lot of legitimate criticisms of Donald Trump. That's not one of them.”
PREVIEWING TRUMP'S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS
Last Tuesday, Trump tweeted that Sims was “a gofer,” “a mess” and “a low level staffer that I hardly knew.”
Sims also weighed in on accusations the president is racist.
“I say that there's nothing that I experienced in my personal time with him over two years when I thought that he was racist,” Sims told Starnes. “I do think that there are times where he's missed some opportunities to lead on the race issue and to, you know, bring racial healing and reconciliation in a way that only the president can with that kind of bully-pulpit microphone that he has. But, I never saw a single thing behind closed doors that gave me any reason to believe that, that he's racist.”
This past Sunday on NBC News' "Meet the Press," Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said “we have a president who is racist,” citing Trump's response to the 2017 attack in Charlottesville, Va., among other things. Brown was asked for his thoughts in light of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, apologizing but refusing to step down over a racist photo in a 1984 yearbook.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg makes public appearance, first since surgery

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Monday attended a concert called, "Notorious RBG in Song" in Washington, D.C., marking her first public appearance since undergoing lung cancer surgery last December.
The 85-year-old has been recuperating at her home in Washington since the procedure at New York's Memorial Sloane Kettering to remove the lower lobe of her left lung. Two nodules were discovered in a CT scan shortly after she broke ribs in a fall. She had two previous bouts with cancer, but doctors are optimistic that the surgery was successful and she is cancer free.
The justice sat in the back of the darkened auditorium at the National Museum of Women in the Arts and, according to The Washington Post, was only spotted by concertgoers as they left the performance.
The concert was presented by her daughter-in-law and other musicians. Patrice Michaels is married to Ginsburg’s son, James. Michaels is a soprano and composer. James Ginsburg said before the concert that his mother is walking a mile a day and meeting with her personal trainer twice a week.
Ginsburg’s recent absence from the court and participation from home is not unprecedented. The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist also worked from home and even authored several opinions while undergoing cancer treatment from 2004-05.

Chris Christie say he’d endorse Trump over any GOP primary challenger

Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, said in an interview on Monday that he would endorse President Trump over any potential Republican challenger in the event that there’s a primary.
Christie, who recently said he’d make a better commander-in-chief than Trump, told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes that he would endorse the president over any Republicans that he knows of.
A handful of Republicans are sending signals that they’re taking a possible primary run seriously.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld is headed to New Hampshire in two weeks to headline “Politics and Eggs,” a must-stop for White House hopefuls. A source close to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan told Fox News that Hogan, “more than others, is really taking it seriously.”
And an email this week by former Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s political group reminded supporters that “many have suggested Gov. Kasich should run, and he is keeping all of his options on the table.”
Christie praised Trump on the program for at least attempting new avenues of dialog with leaders like North Korea's Kim Jung Un.

'Green New Deal' details emerge, as Ocasio-Cortez preps big reveal of WW2-level mobilization

New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday unveiled new details on the so-called "Green New Deal" she plans to introduce in a matter of days, as she worked behind-the-scenes to rally congressional support for the proposal that could cost as much as $7 trillion.
Ocasio-Cortez, who is set to unveil the plan with Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, told her fellow representatives in a letter that the Green New Deal calls for a "national, social, industrial and economic mobilization at a scale not seen since World War II."
"Next week, we plan to release a resolution that outlines the scope and scale of the Green New Deal,” Ocasio-Cortez said in the letter, adding that the country's near-total economic transformation should take approximately ten years.
To raise awareness for the measure, Markey announced Monday he had invited Varshini Prakash, the co-founder of the Sunrise Movement environmentalist group, to be his guest at President Trump's State of the Union address Tuesday night. (Several other Democrats announced guests apparently intended to highlight their opposition to various Trump administration policies, while Trump himself extended invites to the family of a couple allegedly murdered by an illegal immigrant and a child bullied at school for having the last name "Trump.")
The Green New Deal proposal would lead to national net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, according to Ocasio-Cortez's letter, “through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers,” while also generating millions of “good, high-wage jobs." Details of the letter were first published by Bloomberg.
ANALYSIS: GREEN NEW DEAL IS MOST RADICAL LEGISLATION IN DECADES
Through it all, the Green New Deal would additionally “promote justice and equity by preventing current and repairing historic oppression to frontline and vulnerable communities," according to Ocasio-Cortez.

December 10, 2018 - Washington, DC, United States - Protesters seen holding placards during the Sunrise Movement protest inside the office of US Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to advocate that Democrats support the Green New Deal. (Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images via ZUMA Wire)

On Twitter Monday, Ocasio-Cortez reposted a claim from one of her advisers, Robert Hockett, arguing that "in this case, size matters" and that "the problems the Green New Deal addresses require solutions where bigger is better, imperative, and paraodixcally, more affordable."
Hockett is a lawyer and law professor, and is not an expert in environmental policy.
Several analysts, meanwhile, have cautioned that the liberal firebrand is in over her head, even though the as-yet vague and uncertain details about the Green New Deal render a precise calculation impossible at the moment. Physicist Christopher Clack told The Hill that the cost would easily be into the trillions.
“It’s a daunting task, and I’m not sure that the authors of the Green New Deal fully comprehend how much they’ll need,” Clack said.
Institute for Energy Research president Tom Pyle was more blunt: “One hundred percent renewable energy defies the laws of physics. It would be impossible to achieve.”
And Paul Bledsoe, a strategic adviser at the Progressive Policy Institute, said progressives were overcompensating. “I understand the value of aspirational goals,” Bledsoe said. “My personal view is, that undermines the credibility of the effort.”
Nevertheless, approximately 70 Democratic lawmakers have so far tentatively endorsed a Green New Deal plan, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has vowed to address climate change, has not publicly signed onto the plan, even though scores of progressive activists -- joined by Ocasio-Cortez -- staged a sit-in at her House office late last year, demanding action on the climate.
While there is no legislative text yet available for the Markey/Ocasio-Cortez proposal, a draft circulated by Ocasio-Cortez last week called for a committee to be formed to create a plan, and lays out a framework that includes eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing and agriculture, while “dramatically” expanding energy sources to meet 100 percent of power demand through renewable sources.

FILE - In this Nov. 28, 2018, file photo, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., joined by from left, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio., and Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., speaks to media at Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, to announce her nomination by House Democrats to lead them in the new Congress. Pelosi has appointed Castor to lead a special committee on climate change that replaces one eliminated by Republicans in 2011. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

To cover what would presumably be a gargantuan cost, it envisions financing by “the federal government, using a combination of the Federal Reserve, a new public bank or system of regional and specialized public banks, public venture funds and such other vehicles or structures that the select committee deems appropriate, in order to ensure that interest and other investment returns generated from public investments made in connection with the plan will be returned to the treasury, reduce taxpayer burden and allow for more investment.”
CRENSHAW, OCASIO-CORTEZ TRADE BARBS ON WEALTH TAX, NFL PROTESTS
As it stands, any such proposal would be almost certainly dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled Senate, and also possibly the House -- where it is not clear if a majority of Democrats would back a plan.
Even if Congress managed to pass a version of the Green New Deal, the White House could veto the legislation, and a two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate would be needed to override the veto.
The Trump administration has made clear it would not accept Ocasio-Cortez's proposals. In January, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders derided Ocasio-Cortez's recent claim that the world will end in 12 years due to climate change, and suggested the Trump administration has little need for the progressive firebrand's thoughts in general.
"I don't think we're going to listen to [Ocasio-Cortez] on much of anything -- particularly not on matters we're gonna leave in the hands of a much, much higher authority -- and certainly, not listen to the freshman congresswoman on when the world may end," Sanders told Fox News' "Hannity."
Speaking at an event commemorating Martin Luther King Day that month, Ocasio-Cortez asserted that climate change constituted "our World War II" and added: “Millennials and people, you know, Gen Z and all these folks that will come after us are looking up and we’re like: ‘The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change and your biggest issue is, how are we gonna pay for it?'"
But conservative commentators have argued that most proposed solutions to global warming would do more harm than good, and also have accused climate activists of crying wolf. In 2006, a NASA scientist and leading global warming researcher declared that the world had only 10 years to avert a climate catastrophe -- a deadline that has come and gone.
Fox News' Adam Shaw contributed to this report.

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Border Patrol agent killed while on duty in Texas: officials

Customs and Border Patrol Agent Donna Doss, 49, was killed Saturday night while on patrol in Abilene, Texas, officials said. (Banks County Sheriff’s Office)

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent died while working in Texas on Saturday, officials said.

Agent Donna Doss, 49, was helping state police near Interstate 20 in Abilene just before 9 p.m., the agency said in a news release.

BORDER AGENTS REPORTEDLY DISCOVER 60-FOOT TUNNEL TO MEXICO AT SOUTHERN BORDER
While she assisted, Doss was "struck and killed by a passing vehicle" and died at the scene.
Doss served the agency for more than 15 years, after beginning duty in November 2003.
“Agent Doss died while performing her duty, protecting the community and the United States," Del Rio Sector Acting Chief Patrol Agent Matthew Hudak said. "Our heart, prayers, and support go out to Agent Doss’ family in this time of need."