There’s nothing DC media loves more than a horse race. Well, okay, maybe they love a false conflation more than horse-race journalism, but it’s a close call.
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was hounded by reporters Monday evening, demanding to know her thoughts on various elections unrelated to her, as well as her 2028 plans. She was not impressed.
Watch here:
First, she was asked about leadership in that other chamber, the Senate. Should Senate Minority Leader (presumed to be Majority Leader) Chuck Schumer (D-NY) go?
“I mean, listen. I think that Senator Schumer is out there making his case, and you have a wide diversity of members of the Senate. We dealt with the same thing here with Speaker Pelosi. There were members who, you know, voted or not, and I think that it's up to whoever's running to run their whip operation. Senator Schumer has been leader for many years. He served in the Senate for many years,” she answered diplomatically.
Reading between the lines, it’s likely she thinks he should go, but the Senate is not her chamber and it isn’t a good look to be seen as telling the other chamber how to conduct their business. AOC is someone who came into the House as a freshman and after butting heads with then Speaker Pelosi, she learned from the best about how to navigate the politics of the U.S. House. She has excelled.
AOC was then asked if she was considering running against Schumer in 2028, and that’s when she slammed the media for their horse race obsession.
“The thing that's important here is the last thing that people want to hear from me or any other politician here is about the next election, and what they actually want to hear from us is about what we are going to do with the electoral results they just gave us on Tuesday,” the progressive Democrat from New York replied.
“So I think people are less concerned about the horse race, and they want to know what are the investigations we're going to be starting, what is the legislation that we're going to be starting, what are we going to do about the ACA subsidy cliff and the Medicaid cliff that's coming in January. That's what people want to hear about with what we're going to do with the power that they just gave us, as opposed to being exhausted and talking about an election.”