Bernie Sanders, AOC rally in Tempe, call out Arizona GOP
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rallied in Arizona on March 21, 2025. The Democrats called out the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk are “taking a wrecking ball to our country,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said at a Tempe rally with Sen. Bernie Sanders, warning that “we are witnessing an oligarchy in America” and Democrats should do more to stop it.
The progressive lawmakers took their “fighting oligarchy tour” to the Arizona State University campus on Thursday night. Sanders, I-Vt., and Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., are traveling the country to host rallies challenging Trump and Musk.
“We’re gonna throw these bums out and fight for the nation we deserve,” Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said. “This isn’t just about Republicans. We need a Democratic Party that fights harder for us, too.”
Sanders, I-Vt., and Ocasio-Cortez drew an overflow crowd to the college town, where they painted the country as being overtaken by Trump, Musk and other tech billionaires such as Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
“The oligarchs are enormously powerful. That’s just the truth,” Sanders said. “But from the bottom of my heart, I am convinced that they can be defeated.”
The progressive lawmakers gathered supporters at Arizona State University’s Mullett Arena for their 6 p.m. event.
Ocasio-Cortez also threw shade at former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., who was replaced by Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., after she did not to run for reelection last year.
“One thing I love about Arizonans is that you all have shown that if a U.S. senator isn’t fighting hard enough for you, you’re not afraid to replace her with one who will. And win,” Ocasio-Cortez said, to applause.
Her comments came days after Sinema and Ocasio-Cortez sparred online about the Senate filibuster. Sinema defended the rule during her time in office and eventually became an independent after facing bitter pushback from her own party.
Ocasio-Cortez praised Gallego, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., and Arizona’s Democratic House members. She also called on voters to give Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., “the boot” when he’s up for reelection in 2026 in his purple district.
More than 10,000 people attended the Tempe rally, Ocasio-Cortez said when she addressed supporters in an parking lot overflow space after the program.
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez will travel to Colorado on Friday for a pair of rallies. From there, they’ll return to Arizona for a rally at Catalina High School in Tucson on Saturday.
During his remarks, Sanders railed against income and wealth inequality and said that Americans should be entitled to a “decent standard of living.” He asked the crowd what living paycheck-to-paycheck meant to them and asked them to shout out the price of their health insurance deductibles.
“In America today, Trump and his billionaire friends have never ever had it so good in the history of this country,” said Sanders, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020.
“It’s not just oligarchy that we’re gonna fight. It’s not just authoritarianism that we’re gonna fight. We will not accept a society today in which we have massive income and wealth inequalities where the very rich have never done better and working families are struggling to put food on the table,” Sanders continued.
At one point, Sanders asked the crowd: “You got 9/11s here?” before launching into a metaphor about a convenience store to hammer the “CEOs of major corporations who are robbing us every single day.” He appeared to have meant 7-Eleven stores.
Ocasio-Cortez struck a similar tone about the cost of living and welcomed more people into her political tent. She is often mentioned as a potential presidential candidate in 2028.
“No matter if you know the right words to say, no matter your race, religion, gender identity or status, no matter if you disagree with me on a few things,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “If you are willing to fight for someone you don’t know, you are welcome here.”
Democrats have flooded Arizona with town halls this week in an effort to capitalize on voter frustration with the Department of Government Efficiency, which Trump and Musk have used to fire thousands of federal employees this year.
Nationally, 60% of voters disapprove of how Musk and DOGE are dealing with federal employees, according to a poll from Quinnipiac University.
Quinnipiac surveyed 1,198 self-identified registered voters nationwide from March 6-10. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.
Kelly and Gallego teamed up for a town hall on Medicaid this week. Reps. Yassamin Ansari and Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., also held town halls, and Democratic activists have arranged protests and an empty-chair town hall to press the state’s Republican members of Congress to address Trump’s more controversial moves.
Before Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez took the stage, Arizona Education Association President Marisol Garcia encouraged the crowd to “defend our public education system” after the president signed an executive order aimed at dismantling the Department of Education earlier Thursday.
At the signing, Trump said he wanted to return education back to the states.
“Things are not getting better for us. They’re getting worse,” Garcia said. “Nobody is coming to save us. It is us. I’m calling on everyone in here to defend our public education system.”
Arizonans who attended the Tempe rally said they’re deeply concerned by Trump’s actions during his first months in office. Several also said they back Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez but do not feel represented by either major political party, Republican or Democrat.
Rachel Bergeron, 26, is a travel nurse who lives in Phoenix. She attended the rally with Gerard Gubash, a 32-year-old PhD student at Arizona State University. They’re both members of the Democratic Socialists of America.
“Politics has always been deranged but I do feel like there’s a greater awareness,” Gubash said. “Even people that have been blinkered over the past maybe eight or so years, can’t help but see what’s going on, which is an absolute selling out of the public sector for the sake of the oligarchs.”
“I registered as a Democrat last week for the first time in my life so that I could take part in the primary process because I’m sick of these guys,” Gubash added.
Bergeron also registered as a Democrat to vote in primaries. Both said they do not feel aligned with either major party.
“Neither party represents any true class interests,” Bergeron said.
Lyncia Begay, 36, a freelancer who lives in Flagstaff, joked that Sanders is “the best president we never had.” She agreed that neither major party represents her.
“They’re just the same wings on the same bird,” Begay said. “They’re so out of touch with the public that they don’t actually know what it is to be working class or a normal human being in the world right now.”
Begay attended with Jimmy Killoran, 36, another Flagstaff resident who works for the post office.
“Trump is sort of just executive ordering everything away. So I think there needs to be some pushback from both sides,” Killoran said. “But neither side seems to be really stepping up.”
(This story was updated to add new information and photos.)