U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. (MSNBC screenshot)
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., says Joe Biden is not progressive enough on many issues, but the Democratic presidential nominee "likely" can be pushed further to the left if he reaches the Oval Office.
In an interview with Just the News, the leading member of the far-left House freshman "squad" said she agreed with the assessment of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that Biden is not progressive enough at this point in the campaign.
"Of course I do," said Ocasio-Cortez on Capitol Hill Tuesday. "We're different people, and clearly I, in the primary, one of the reasons why I was supportive of Senator Sanders was because of how progressive his stances are, but, you know, the primaries are over, and right now what is most important is to make sure that we ensure a Democratic victory in November and that we continue to push Vice President Biden on issues from marijuana to climate change to foreign policy."
She said she believes her party's progressive wing can move Biden to the left.
"I think, overall, we can likely push Vice President Biden in a more progressive direction across policy issues," she said. "I think foreign policy is an enormous area where we can improve; immigration is another one. There are some areas where we just fundamentally disagree, but that's okay. I think it's important to acknowledge that we can have, in some cases, very large disagreements — it doesn't mean that we're trying to undermine the party or undermine each other. It means that we're trying to do what's best for people in the country."
She described the Biden campaign as "pretty stubborn" on health care reform. Biden opposes Sanders' proposal of Medicare for all, instead proposing a federally run public option.
"We'll see what progress that we're able to make on issues like immigration and criminal justice reform," Ocasio-Cortez said.
The New York Democrat said the "main priority is to make sure that the vice president is successful and victorious in November so that we can have those kinds of conversations in the first place from a more effective stance with him in the White House."
Outsized impact
Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described democratic socialist, has had an outsized impact on Congress during her first term, helping drive the party's agenda to the left.
She's a co-sponsor of the radical Green New Deal to address climate change and "economic equality."
The lawmaker waged a campaign that convinced Amazon to cancel its plan for a second headquarters, in New York City, that would have created an estimated 25,000 jobs.
She compared her election victory to a moon landing, vowed to "run train" in Congress, was fined for campaign-finance violations, accused President Trump of being "racist" and announced she needed a break for personal care.
She wants more money than her $174,000 salary provides, and a tax warrant was issued in 2017 against a children's books publisher she launched.
In Congress, she accused Christians of "weaponizing" the Bible to support "bigotry":
"It's very difficult to sit here and listen to arguments in the long history of this country of using Scripture and weaponizing and using Scripture to justify bigotry," she said. "White supremacists have done it. Those who justify slavery have done it. Those who fought against integration did it."
She more recently has declared that billionaires "should not exist."
In a time when ~60% of American workers make less than $40,000 a year, billionaires should not exist.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 20, 2020
.@AOC on why she’s “polarizing”:
“Our political system is not designed for people like us. They’re not designed for working people to succeed, for young people, for women, for people of color.”
Unlike others, "rich men are not the center of my universe." pic.twitter.com/kf1JZv5Ckx
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) February 19, 2020
The Gateway Pundit pointed out Cortez, 30, was an economics major from Boston University who was tending bar just before she was elected to Congress from her far-left district.
She claimed in an interview that the American political system "is not designed for people like us."
"They're not designed for working people to succeed, for young people, for women, for people of color."
"In a time when ~60% of American workers make less than $40,000 a year, billionaires should not exist. Also, billionaires don’t have a billion dollars because they 'work' thousands of times harder than the teacher or the single mom. They are billionaires because the stock market makes that money for them, which relies on profiteering off ... low wages, scrapped jobs, etc. (& if not this way, acquiring a billion dollars can also happen via monopoly power, low wages, rent-seeking behavior, not paying fair share of taxes, etc) We need worker-centered policies that reign (sic) in Wall Street and value work – including a TON of unvalued and undervalued work, like caregiving. The cost of system that concentrates a billion dollars in the hands of few powerful people is massive, devastating income inequality."
She charged that America's "entire political system revolves, frankly, around rich men."
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