Two newly elected Democratic members of Michigan’s congressional delegation recently shared their thoughts on an early-December trip to Harvard University that included some of the country’s top business executives.
U.S. Reps.-elect Andy Levin (D-Bloomfield Twp.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit) were among the newly-elected congressional representatives to take part in a semi-annual retreat hosted by the university’s Institute of Politics to hear from professors and business leaders on issues that the leaders might be dealing with, according to a post by the Harvard Political Review.
But the event was also marked by protest from critical incoming Democratic lawmakers like Tlaib and U.S. Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York).
Tlaib, for example, took issue with the inclusion of Gary Cohn, the former economic advisor to President Donald Trump and a long-time banking executive with Goldman Sachs.
“No Gary, YOU don’t know what’s coming – a revolutionary Congress that puts people over profits,” Tlaib said in a tweet regarding some of Cohn’s statements to the representatives.
Gary Cohen, former CEO Goldman Sachs addressing new members of Congress today: “You guys are way over your head, you don’t know how the game is played.”
No Gary, YOU don’t know what’s coming – a revolutionary Congress that puts people over profits. https://t.co/ZLML2qzAW6
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) December 6, 2018
Likewise, Levin — a Harvard Law School alum who the publication called “perhaps the most interesting member-elect at the event” due to his working-class attire — noted his desire to shift the country’s balance of power.
“It was great to meet students formally and informally outside [at the protests],” Levin said. “But we heard from a wide, wide range of views and people who think we need to move very aggressively to transform the power structures of this country and [from] people who, to someone like me, would seem like their main function in life is to keep the power structures in this society just how they are.”
