The AOC did not understand the Amazon deal … at all

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday that the Democratic Representative of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) had no idea what she was talking about when she said that Amazon was pulling out of its contract to build a new office complex in Long Island freed of money to repair the subway and hire more teachers.

In an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd, the host said that the tax breaks offered to Amazon were not "money you had here. And it was happening there.

"Okay," replied Blasio. "And those $ 3 billion that would be reinvested in tax incentives only came out after we got the jobs and generated the revenues."

To clarify, Todd said, "There is not 3 billion dollars of money …"

"There is no money, that's right," Blasio said.

Todd aired an excerpt from Ocasio-Cortez's reaction to the news that Amazon was pulling out of its contract to build the complex.

"If we were willing to give $ 3 billion for this deal, we could invest that $ 3 billion in our district ourselves, if we wanted to. We could hire more teachers. We can repair our subways. We can make many people work for this money, if we wanted to, "said Ocasio-Cortez.

Amazon dropped plans last week to build a $ 2.5 billion campus that would have provided 25,000 jobs under pressure from activists and some politicians.

In a statement, the company said the lack of community support was the reason for its decision. "

"For Amazon, the commitment to build a new head office requires positive, collaborative relationships with local and local elected officials who will provide long-term support, although polls show that 70 per cent of New Yorkers support our plans and our investments, a number of local and state politicians made it clear that they opposed our presence and would not work with us to establish the type of relationships required to move the project forward that we and many others envisioned in Long Island City.

De Blasio, however, argued that "no one persecuted [Amazon] far … let's be clear about who made this decision, "he said, noting that" what [Amazon] was arbitrary and unfair to the workers ".