Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Endorses Joe Biden: ‘Absolutely’ Must ‘Rally Behind Our Democratic Nominee’

Progressive New York Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez delivered an unequivocal endorsement of former Vice President Joe Biden’s candidacy, saying that voters “absolutely” should “rally behind our Democratic nominee in November.”

On Wednesday’s edition of ABC’s The View, host Whoopi Goldberg asked AOC if she’d “be able to do the same thing” as Bernie Sanders and endorse Biden, and whether “it’s time to have a conversation with Joe?”

“Absolutely,” she replied, adding that “the stakes are too high when it comes to another four years of Trump.”

Her remarks went beyond having a “conversation” about endorsing Biden, though, as AOC went on to say “I think it’s really important that we rally behind our Democratic nominee in November,” and argued explicitly against voting third party.

While she expressed some room for Biden to shift in “a more unifying direction” on policy, Ocasio-Cortez was unequivocal about the choice for voters.

Whoopi Goldberg: Last week Bernie suspended his campaign and endorsed Joe Biden, and now are you going to be able to do the same thing, given the fact that everyone’s initial thought is to get you know who out of the White House and get some semblance of intelligence back in. Do you think it’s time to have a conversation with Joe?

Ocasio-Cortez: Yeah, absolutely, I think right now just, the stakes are too high when it comes to another four years of Trump. My community especially has been so impacted, and it’s for a lot of communities, this is an issue of life and death.

We’ve had kids in cages, we’ve had a pandemic response that happened way too late that has cost us lives, we have people that don’t have access to critical care that they need. I think it’s really important that we rally behind our democratic nominee in November.

Joy Behar: So Congresswoman, some progressives are suggesting that with Bernie out of the race, they’ll vote third party. That would be a catastrophe in my opinion. What do you say to those people? And also part two, Biden has made some efforts to appeal to progressives, like lowering the eligibility age for Medicare to 60 and expanding student debt forgiveness. Is that enough?

Ocasio-Cortez: So I think that they are connected questions. I think what’s really important is that we do realize that at the end of the day one of these two candidates are going to be elected president of the United States. It’s either going to be Joe Biden or it’s going to be Donald Trump.

And I think it’s important to communicate from empathy, I know for a lot of people this was not the outcome that they may have wanted and this was not the choice that they wanted to make. But ultimately, when it comes to those two, I don’t think it’s particularly close in terms of, in terms of what communities will be made more vulnerable.

What I also think is really important is that the way to, I think, move in a unifying direction is that unity isn’t a feeling, it’s a process, and I think that Biden can go further.

I think that it’s not necessarily enough, lowering Medicare to 60, by 5 years, is still more conservative than what Hillary Clinton proposed in 2016. Hillary was talking about lowering it to 50 four years ago, and so I think there is certainly room, I think that there’s going to be room on issues like immigration, Puerto Rico, health care, climate change, and I think that it’s healthy to do that.

I think what we shouldn’t do is recreate this dynamic where we are kind of finger-wagging and nagging people into voting, because it’s not a way of generating enthusiasm. I think one thing that we can do is improve the policies that we have as a party, to tell young people, to tell all sorts of people ‘We see you and we have a plan for you, and we’re going to create hope for all sorts of communities in the United States.’

Watch the clip above via ABC.

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com