Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) accepted a significant donation in August 2018 from billionaire and 2020 presidential candidate Tom Steyer.
Ocasio-Cortez criticized South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) during a rally for presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) Saturday in Los Angeles, California, for hosting a fundraiser with billionaires present, according to Fox Business.
She stated:
For anyone who accuses us of instituting purity tests, it’s called having values. It’s called giving a damn. It’s called having standards for your conduct, to not be funded by billionaires but to be funded by the people, which is different. Let me tell you something… I go to work all the time and I hear people say, “what will my donors think?; I hear that phrase. And I hear and I see that billionaires get members of Congress on speed dial and waitresses don’t, okay? There’s a difference.”
The long-time Democrat gave $2,700 to Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign on August 29, 2018, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
Steyer’s presidential campaign website stated that “Tom has worked directly with people to take on big corporations and win” and that he planned to “break the corporate stranglehold on our government, and enact the structural reforms we need to save our democracy.”
At the rally Saturday, Sanders also took a shot at Buttigieg for his “purity test” comments to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) during the Democrat debate last week.
Sanders continued:
We don’t go to rich people’s wine caves. This is a campaign of the working class of this country, by the working class, and for the working class. Our campaign has received more contributions from more people than any candidate in the history of the United States of America. We don’t have a super PAC. We don’t want a super PAC.
Sanders’ campaign raked in more than $1 million in donations during last Thursday’s debate, according to Breitbart News.