Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has dismissed Donald Trump’s warnings of a looming “communist” shift in the United States, calling the suggestion “very silly”.
The exchange followed remarks Trump made during a campaign rally in Marietta, Georgia, where he argued that progressive Democrats are steering the country toward a far-left political agenda.
Speaking to supporters, Trump said:
“Communism is the single greatest threat to our country in its history, including even World War I and World War II, Pearl Harbor, 9/11.”
He also alleged that “communists” want to destroy Mount Rushmore and claimed some Democrats on the left are bypassing socialism entirely and heading straight to communism.
Later, while fielding questions from reporters outside the U.S. Capitol, Ocasio-Cortez was asked whether recent progressive primary victories could create the kind of ‘slippery slope’ toward communism that Trump described. She rejected the idea outright.
“No, I’m not concerned about America turning into a communist country in like a year. I think that’s very silly,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
The New York representative then turned to the broader economic picture, arguing that the current structure of American policy makes such claims especially implausible. She pointed to the fact that the federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009.
That figure remains the federal minimum wage for covered nonexempt workers, even though a number of states and localities now require higher hourly pay. For a full-time worker putting in 40 hours a week, $7.25 an hour works out to $15,080 a year before taxes.
“We can’t even raise the minimum wage. Do Republicans really think that this stuff is going to happen? No, they don’t; they’re trying to scare people,” she explained. “Because they don’t want us talking about the fact that we all have a right to healthcare in this country.”
At that wage, someone working 40 hours a week earns $15,080 a year before taxes. That remains below the federal poverty line, which places the 100% poverty threshold at $15,960 for one person and $33,000 for a household of four.
The gap between pay at the federal minimum wage and basic living costs has remained a political flashpoint for years, with Democrats arguing that wage growth has lagged behind housing, food and healthcare costs, while Republicans have generally resisted broad federal wage hikes.
Ocasio-Cortez argued that terms such as ‘communist’ are often used to divert attention away from bread-and-butter issues affecting ordinary voters.
“They want to call everything they don’t like communist because if people actually wake up to the fact that their elected officials are screwing them over when they get here, then they’re going to realize they deserve better,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“They want to call this stuff communist because they don’t want us to realize that the rest of the developed world has guaranteed healthcare.”
Her comments come amid increasingly heated rhetoric from conservative figures, including Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who recently suggested Democrats hold sympathies with past communist governments. Despite that, no current member of Congress openly identifies as a communist.
Asked whether she is considering a run for higher office in 2028, Ocasio-Cortez said her attention remains on the nearer political horizon, stating she has ‘genuinely not really weighed seriously anything past the midterm elections.’
The remarks also arrive as Trump continues to frame the 2026 midterm cycle around warnings about socialism and communism, a message he has used repeatedly to target Democratic candidates and progressive lawmakers.