“One reason that people who are politically conservative are skeptical of efforts to combat climate change is that it sounds to them like it requires massive government intervention, which they just don’t like,” Inskeep asked. “Are you prepared to put on that table that, ‘Yes actually they’re right, what this requires is massive government intervention?'”

Ocasio-Cortez responded: “It does, it does, yeah, I have no problem saying that. Why? Because we have tried their approach for 40 years. For 40 years we have tried to let the private sector take care of this. They said, ‘We got this, we can do this, the forces of the market are going to force us to innovate.’ Except for the fact that there’s a little thing in economics called externalities. And what that means is that a corporation can dump pollution in the river and they don’t have to pay, but taxpayers have to pay.”

But later in the day, in an interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, Ocasio-Cortez blamed conservatives for suggesting that she wanted a massive government program.