Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) refused to say on Sunday whether she would endorse President Joe Biden in 2024, furthering speculation over whether the president could face internal opposition for a second term.
Ocasio-Cortez appeared on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday to discuss her experience during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. As her interview ended, anchor Dana Bash sought the lawmaker’s opinion on the 2024 field, noting Biden’s public desire to run again.
“He is saying he's going to run again in 2024. Will you support him?” Bash asked.
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“I’m focused on winning this majority right now and preserving a majority this year and 2022. So we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “But I think if the president has a vision, and that’s something, certainly, we’re all willing to entertain and examine when the time comes.”
“That’s not a yes,” Bash responded.
“I think we should endorse when we get to it… but I believe that the president has been doing a very good job so far. And, you know, should he run again, I think that I, you know, I think it’s — we'll take a look at it. Right now. We need to focus on winning a majority instead of a presidential election.”
The question followed the Democratic star’s endorsement of Alessandra Biaggi, a Democratic New York state senator seeking to oust Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), who leads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Jim Messina, a former campaign manager for President Barack Obama, had said “dumb shit like this” could cause Democrats to lose the House of Representatives in November.
Ocasio-Cortez told Bash the endorsement was needed to bring more millennials into Congress, not to further divide Democrats.
“I don’t believe if we get elected once to Congress, we should be elected in perpetuity,” she said. “Our party is changing, our party is dynamic. And right now, millennials are deeply underrepresented in Congress compared to Baby Boomers and Gen Xers back when they were our age, frankly. At the end of the day, we need to have a generational shift in the United States Congress to have a policy shift in the United States Congress.”
