US senator joined by AOC, who slams Trump’s ‘corrupt and disastrous tariff scheme’ as ploy to enrich corporate cronies.
Tens of thousands of people have gathered in the United States city of Los Angeles to attend a rally organised by Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez against the growing influence of billionaires and corporations in politics under President Donald Trump’s administration.
Sanders took to the stage at the Gloria Molina Grand Park on Saturday, the latest stop on the ongoing “Fighting Oligarchy” tour of the nation, telling the crowd that Trump was moving the country towards “an authoritarian form of society”.
“Mr Trump, we ain’t going there!” he said, drawing applause from 36,000 people who reportedly attended the event, which featured a lineup of politicians and musicians, including Neil Young and Joan Baez.
“We are living in a moment where a handful of billionaires control the economic and political life of our country,” Sanders said, telling supporters that their presence at the event would make Trump and his tech billionaire ally Elon Musk “very nervous”.
Ocasio-Cortez, who is popularly known as AOC, hit out at Trump’s “corrupt and disastrous tariff scheme”, saying it was not about boosting domestic manufacturing but rather about market manipulation.
“It was about hurting retirees and everyday people in the [stock] selloff, so Trump could quietly enrich his friends who he nudged to buy [in] the dip before reversing it all the next morning,” she told the fired-up crowd.
AOC: Donald Trump is a criminal. A criminal found guilty of 34 felony counts of fraud. Of course he is lying and manipulating the stock market too. He is making himself, the billionaires who back him and the members of Congress who trade with him rich, not you, not me, not the… pic.twitter.com/Pk2oxZqyuo
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 12, 2025
Reporting from the rally, Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds said the tour is “part of a growing movement of resistance” to the Trump administration and its policies, particularly the attempts to roll back the social safety net and provide tax breaks to wealthy Americans.
He pointed out that the tour would also be reaching out to voters in Idaho, Utah and Montana – states that were won by Trump in November’s presidential election – in the hope of connecting with those experiencing “buyer’s regret”.
The progressive, leftist rhetoric at the event has resonated with people opposed to Trump’s policies and with those disappointed in established Democrats’ lack of political resistance to the Republican president.
“We’ve all got to rise up together, fight it, push it back, make something else happen because this cannot go on,” David Rasmussen, who attended Saturday’s event, told Al Jazeera.