Joe Biden brushed off Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s complaint that the U.S. political system places the ideological rivals in the same political party.
“Differences in the party have always existed,” Biden, 77, said in an NBC News interview on Tuesday. He mentioned that George McGovern, a left-wing South Dakota senator who was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1972, lost badly to President Richard Nixon the same year Biden was first elected to the Senate. “He only won about 34% of my state when I ran with him,” Biden said.
“I get broad support from the African American community, the black and brown community, the working-class, middle-class folks,” Biden added, “a few of whom voted for Trump.”
Earlier this week, Ocasio-Cortez, a first-term House member from New York who has endorsed socialist Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential race, expressed frustration that the U.S. political system puts her on the same team as moderates like Biden.
“Democrats can be too big of a tent,” said Ocasio-Cortez, 30, in an interview Monday, lamenting that the Congressional Progressive Caucus allows “anybody who the cat dragged in to call themselves a progressive.”
When asked about Biden, Ocasio-Cortez groaned. “In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party, but in America, we are,” she said.
After facing criticism for her comments, Ocasio-Cortez pointed out that New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew switched to the Republican Party before a House impeachment vote.
“People are acting like a Dem didn’t just join the GOP a few [weeks] ago,” she tweeted Tuesday. “Other safe Dems actually fundraise for Republicans. That’s not ‘moderate.’”
