Video Shows Dianne Feinstein Dismissing Kids Asking About Green New Deal
A climate advocacy group is calling a foul against Sen. Dianne Feinstein after the California Democrat appeared to lecture and dismiss a group of kids who were urging for her to vote yes on the Green New Deal.
Sunrise Movement, a budding environmental organization that urges lawmakers to take action on climate change, tweeted footage of a group of children with some adults at the senator’s office in San Francisco urging her to address the issue.
Stephen O’Hanlon, a spokesman for the group, identified the protesters in the video as Sunrise Movement “supporters and family members” in the Bay Area. The children present were between the ages of 7 and 16, according to the organization.
In the Twitter video, Feinstein seems to rebuff the kids while boasting about her experience in the Senate. A longer version of the encounter was aslo posted to Facebook.
Later Friday night, the entire recording was posted to Twitter, showing Feinstein acting more cordial toward the kids before boasting about her tenure and arguing against the Green New Deal resolution.
This is how @SenFeinstein reacted to children asking her to support the #GreenNewDeal resolution -- with smugness + disrespect.
This is a fight for our generation's survival. Her reaction is why young people desperately want new leadership in Congress. pic.twitter.com/0zAkaxruMI— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) February 22, 2019
“The government is supposed to be for the people and by the people,” one child tells Feinstein.
“You know what’s interesting about this group,” the longtime senator replies. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I know what I’m doing. You come in here and you say it has to be my way or the highway. I don’t respond to that.”
“I’ve gotten elected. I just ran. I was elected by almost a million vote plurality. And I know what I’m doing,” she tells the group. “So you know, maybe people should listen a little bit.”
O’Hanlon told HuffPost in an email that the children were “upset and disappointed” by Feinstein’s attitude toward them.
During the meeting, Feinstein expressed skepticism about the Green New Deal, a landmark resolution that aims to dramatically cut global carbon emissions and human-caused greenhouse gasses. Defending her stance, the senator explained that Democrats are a minority in the Senate, suggesting that legislation with more conservative appeal would be more successful.
She appeared unreceptive as she continued to argue with the kids over their concerns about the climate.
Children as young as 7 reminded Senator Feinstein that their generation will be most impacted by the effects of climate change and that she must stand with her constituents.
The Senator responded by asking for their ages, stating: “Well, you did not vote for me”.— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) February 22, 2019
At one point in the discussion, 16-year-old Isha Clarke reminded Feinstein that speaking to people like her is a part of the senator’s job.
“I hear what you’re saying but we’re the people who voted you,” Clarke tells Feinstein. “You’re supposed to listen to us, that’s your job.”
That prompts Feinstein to ask the teen how old she is, to which she replies, “16.”
“Well, you didn’t vote for me,” Feinstein snaps back.
“It doesn’t matter,” another girl interrupts, reacting to Feinstein’s response. “We’re the ones who are going to be impacted!”
At the end of the full video, Feinstein speaks to Clarke separately, tells her she could get more work done in the senator’s office and offers her an internship.
In an interview with HuffPost, Clarke, a high school junior involved with the environmental group Youth vs. Apocalypse, said she was surprised by Feinstein’s quip. But she said the senator’s attitude made her feel even more “empowered to speak up.”
“I know that, regardless of if I can vote or not, my parents voted for her, the adults in that room voted for her ― and I am her constituent,” said Clarke, who is from Oakland. “She represents me and I am the one giving her power.”
Clarke added: “Even though [Feinstein] tried to disempower me in that moment, I felt very much like I had a right to be telling her what I needed.”
Some context: Feinstein has accepted nearly $252,000 from the oil and gas industry during her time in Congress — not a lot compared to, say, Mitch McConnell, but not nothing. The progressive challenger she beat last year was the architect of California’s 100% clean power bill.
— Alexander Kaufman (@AlexCKaufman) February 22, 2019
It should be noted, as others have pointed out, that she’s been in Congress for nearly three decades and lifetime contributions from oil and gas aren’t a great metric of progressivism. Bernie Sanders has taken $123,975 from oil and gas and $4,280 from coal.
— Alexander Kaufman (@AlexCKaufman) February 23, 2019
In a statement to HuffPost, Feinstein described Friday’s confrontation with the youth group as a “spirited discussion” in which she presented her own “draft resolution that provides specific responses to the climate change crisis.”
“Unfortunately, it was a brief meeting but I want the children to know they were heard loud and clear. I have been and remain committed to doing everything I can to enact real, meaningful climate change legislation,” the senator said.
“I always welcome the opportunity to hear from Californians who feel passionately about this issue and it remains a top priority of mine,” she added.
Feinstein is among a group of senators who oppose the climate-focused legislation and who have also accepted money from oil, gas and coal companies during their time in Congress. Feinstein has accepted nearly $252,000 from the oil and gas industry over nearly three decades.
(At least 12 senators who are co-sponsoring the Green New Deal have also accepted money from those industries but to a lesser degree.)
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Here's the @SenFeinstein video threaded #DianneFeinstein To recap: she engaged on substance, told them she might vote "yes," and OFFERED ONE OF THEM AN INTERNSHIP. pt 1 pic.twitter.com/2Qgob2CH1V
— Tommy MMXIXtopher (@tommyxtopher) February 23, 2019
“This is why young people want new leadership in Washington DC,” Jackie Ali Cordoba, a Sunrise Movement Bay Area member, said in a statement to HuffPost.
“How many wildfires and lost lives will there be before Dianne Feinstein treats climate change like the crisis that it is, and backs the Green New Deal?” Cordoba added. “We don’t have 30 years. California youth demand that our elected officials take the bold action that science and justice require.”
Clarke said that her interaction with Feinstein is fuel for her to continue her activism.
“It gives me even more reason to keep going and to know what I’m doing is right,” the teen told HuffPost. “Because if adults feel that threatened with me telling them the truth that they already know, then that just tells me that I just need to keep speaking.”
Sunrise Movement is on a 14-stop tour across the country to raise support for the resolution. Youth vs. Apocalypse is a separate organization linked to the climate advocacy group 350 Bay Area.
Igor Bobic contributed reporting.
This story has been updated to include the full version of the video obtained by HuffPost on Friday.
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
