WASHINGTON — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has become a leading figure in the fight over government funding, but it’s not a role she’s asked for. Rather, it is a role Republicans have thrust upon her.
“Chuck Schumer is terrified he’s going to get a primary challenge from Alexandria Ocasio Cortez,” said Vice President J.D. Vance on Wednesday. “The reason why the American peoples’ government is shut down is because Chuck Schumer is listening to the far left radicals in his own party because he’s terrified of a primary challenge.”
Republican after Republican have used the popular progressive star as a foil in their argument that Democrats are going overboard in their demands to end the shutdown. They claim she and the left wing of the party are pressuring their more moderate leadership to hold firm.
In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Ocasio-Cortez made it clear Democratic leadership is driving the party’s strategy.
“They’re saying this stuff about me in the press and the fact of the matter is, I can tell you, in the seven years that I’ve been here, they (Republican leaders) have never given me a single phone call, because they know what the truth is,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “They know that the people that they need to be negotiating with, and who they are negotiating with are Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer.”
Vance, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and President Donald Trump continue to claim that Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer in particular is feeling pressure because of the possibility that Ocasio-Cortez might want to primary Schumer for Senate in 2028. The four-term Congresswoman did not rule out a possible Senate bid, but instead said it’s not something with which voters are concerned.
“People are going to die. Nobody cares about some election years from now. They care about if their kids can get insulin, if they can put food on the table,” she told NBC News.
She said her caucus remains “tremendously united” in their demands to end the shutdown and she and her fellow democrats are not intimidated by White House threats around mass layoffs and funding cuts. She said it’s not necessary for her to be front and center in the negotiations.
“It is so important to understand that these people are all talk. They are all talk. They are negotiating with Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and Democratic leadership and Democrats are united to that end.”
Brennan Leach contributed.
