Trump keeps asking if Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went to college

Trump in Wisconsin
(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/AP)

With a week before the final day of voting in the 2020 election, President Trump is holding up to several rallies a day, serving up "an all-you-can-eat buffet of new messages and content," Alex Thompson writes at Politico. (Democratic nominee Joe Biden, he notes, "has been so focused and undeviating that his closing message is quite literally his opening message.") A new line Trump has added to his rally routine is about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), commonly known as AOC. Specifically, Trump keeps asking if Ocasio-Cortez went to college.

"Did she go to college?" Trump asked in Wisconsin on Tuesday. "Tell me, did she, because I don't know. I don't know her background, but it is not heavy into the environment."

Trump taunts Biden, Ocasio-Cortez in Wisconsin - YouTube Trump taunts Biden, Ocasio-Cortez in Wisconsin - YouTube
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This was the second day in a row Trump has tried out this line, and people aren't quite sure why. If he is trying to taunt or belittle her, Ocasio-Cortez doesn't seem to care. Instead, she turned Trump's "classist and disgusting" slight back at him.

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Trump is said to know his base, heavy on white people who didn't attend college, better than the pundits, so presumably he thinks this plays well politically. But if he is going to win, he needs to win back some of the suburban women who have dumped him. He had a new pitch for them, too, on Tuesday.

Trump is also telling his tightly packed, largely maskless rallies he will get rid of the COVID-19 coronavirus, but sometimes it just doesn't come out right. Peter Weber

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.