AOC Tells People to Get Behind Joe Biden: “The Matter Is Closed”

While nearly a dozen elected officials, the New York Times editorial board, and wealthy and connected donors have called for Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters on Monday she is fully behind the president—and that people need to move on from the idea that he’s going to be replaced and focus on beating Donald Trump.

Speaking outside the Capitol, the New York lawmaker said she has spoken “extensively” with Biden and he has “made clear…that he is in this race. The matter is closed…Joe Biden is our nominee. He is in this race and I support him.”

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She added, “Now I think what is critically important right now is that we focus on what it takes to win in November because he is running against Donald Trump, who is a man with 34 felony convictions, [a man who] has committed 34 felony crimes, and not a single Republican has asked for Donald Trump to not be the nominee. I’m here to win on democracy, I’m here to win in November, and what’s critically important is what the president, I believe…needs to do…in order to make sure we win in November, and that is making sure we…increasingly commit to the issues that are critically important to working people across this country.”

AOC said Team Biden must focus on “How are we going to expand Medicare? How are we going to expand Social Security? How are we going to provide relief to people’s rent and mortgages? And if we can do that, and continue our work on student loans, secure a ceasefire, and bring those dollars back into investing in public policy, then that’s how we win in November. That’s what I’m committed to.”

Also on Monday, Senator Bernie Sanders told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that he is confident Biden has the ability to serve as president and blamed the media for turning the election into a “beauty contest.”

“Let me just say this: What media does to a large degree is make politics into a beauty contest, into a Grammy Award–winning contest,” Sanders said. “You are voting for somebody on policy. Who is going to improve your life? Do you want somebody who thinks that climate change is a hoax, who takes away women’s right to control their own bodies, who has appointed extremely anti-union leaders to his administration, which is what Trump did?” He added that if the race is about policy, and “the contrast between what Biden stands for and what Trump stands for” then “Biden’s gonna do just fine.”

On Tuesday, the Times reported that Black female Democrats, who have long been the party’s most dependable voting bloc, remain committed to Biden. Stefanie Brown James, a cofounder of the Collective PAC, which supports Black candidates for government offices, told the outlet, “All the airwaves attention that Democrats are putting on this and not putting on efforts to convince and motivate voters is just completely distracting. I just don’t think it’s helpful right now.”

Others, of course, see it differently, and believe that sticking with Biden is a surefire way to lose in November. But there doesn’t appear to be a clear consensus among those who believe the president needs to drop out re: who should take his place. While some say Kamala Harris should clearly be the nominee, others have proposed holding a primary with barely six weeks until the Democratic National Convention.

Meanwhile, there’s the minor matter of the fact that Biden has said he will absolutely not drop out of the race. Speaking in Wisconsin last week, he declared, “I’m not letting one 90-minute debate wipe out three and a half years of work. I’m staying in the race, and I will beat Donald Trump.”