The liberal political action committee that backed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress called on Hillary Clinton to back the eventual 2020 Democratic Party nominee after the former secretary of state refused to say if she would support Bernie Sanders.
Clinton, 72, would not commit on Tuesday to backing Sanders, her rival for the 2016 nomination, in a general election should he become the 2020 nominee.
In a statement, Justice Democrats Executive Director Alexandra Rojas, 24, said Clinton’s remarks were “unacceptable, out-of-touch, and dangerous,” calling on her to “immediately say that she’ll do everything she can” to support the eventual nominee. “We must keep our eye on the prize.”
Clinton panned Sanders in an interview published on Tuesday.
“He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him. Nobody wants to work with him. He got nothing done,” she says in Hillary, a four-part Hulu series set to premiere at Sundance. “He was a career politician. It’s all just baloney, and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.”
The assessment holds, she said in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter to promote the project.
Sanders dismissed the snub from Clinton while talking to reporters on Tuesday, joking, “On a good day, my wife likes me, so let’s clear the air on that one.” His focus was on President Trump’s impeachment, he said, and he asked supporters to “go forward and defeat the most dangerous president in American history.”
Justice Democrats supported AOC in her upset victory against Democratic incumbent Joseph Crowley of New York. AOC has drawn criticism for financial arrangements by her former chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, and Justice Democrats, which he founded.
