At a House hearing, Ocasio-Cortez asks witness Mr. Schaub whether Congress faces the same accountability as the president. He answers that "there's almost no laws at all that apply to the president." He agrees that members of Congress are held to a higher ethical standard because of ethics committee rules, and that abusing power is even easier for a president.
The receipt
- Who
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
- Where
- hearing - House Oversight Committee
- Original footage
- CNN · watch the full video from this moment
- Length
- 60 seconds, unedited within the cut
Read the transcript
So one last thing, Mr. Schaub. In relation to congressional oversight that we have, the limits that are placed on me as a congresswoman, compared to the executive branch and compared to, say, the president of the United States, would you say that Congress has the same sort of standard of accountability? Is there more teeth in that regulation in Congress on the president or would you say it's about even or more so on the federal? In terms of laws that apply to the president, there's almost no laws at all that apply to the president. So I'm being held and every person in this body is being held to a higher ethical standard than the president of the United States. That's right because there are some committee, ethics committee rules that apply to you. And it's already super legal, as we've seen, for me to be a pretty bad guy. So it's even easier for the President of the United States to be one, I would assume. That's right.
Machine transcript of the clip's audio; names are checked, small words may differ.