CNN host Chris Cuomo interviewed former congressional candidate Elizabeth Heng, who narrated a controversial ad that aired during Thursday night's Democratic debate. The ad featured a picture of socialist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez bursting into flames and transitioning into pictures of the Cambodian genocide, with Heng describing her as "the face of socialism and ignorance" before asking "does Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez know the horror of socialism?" The ad primarily focused on Heng's personal experience with socialism, as the daughter of Cambodian immigrants who had to endure "forced obedience" and "starvation." During the interview, Cuomo downplayed the role of socialism in the Cambodian genocide: "Pol Pot was a brutal autocrat and dictator. That wasn't about socialism. That was about him being an evil human being...You can go to Scandinavia or Denmark and see socialism. They're not killing people." Heng proceeded to school Cuomo on the role of socialist ideology in brutal dictatorships.
