Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said she does not want to make a 2020 presidential endorsement this year but hinted that she will endorse someone during the primary season.
“I certainly don’t want to endorse anyone this year,” Ocasio-Cortez told the New Yorker’s David Remnick in an interview that was published this week. “I think we need to have debates, we need to have a national conversation, and I need to do my job.”
Ocasio-Cortez said conversations about a potential endorsement have come up with Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in addition to other presidential candidates.
“I think I’ve had one or two conversations,” she said. “But it’s not like this constant pressure… It’s probably come up once, and I say I’m not endorsing anybody for some time.”
She also indicated that she did not want to wait until the party’s nominee is chosen to endorse, saying: “I don’t know if I’d wait that long either.”
Ocasio-Cortez has teamed up with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to cap credit card interest rates at 15% and on a “climate emergency” resolution.
She partnered with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to question Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s ties to college roommate and Sears CEO Eddie Lampert over the company’s bankruptcy.
And on Wednesday, she teamed up with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) on a bill to make it easier for those with criminal records to receive federal housing assistance.
But Ocasio-Cortez seemed lukewarm about Harris, implying to the New Yorker’s Remnick that she had no idea what Harris’s worldview is and saying that Harris’s record as San Francisco’s district attorney and California’s attorney general was fair game for criticism.