AOC refuses to endorse Biden for 2024 run: ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it’

Congresswoman is two-time backer of Bernie Sanders for president

New York’s firebrand progressive congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, wouldn’t say on Sunday whether she would endorse Joe Biden for reelection in 2024 amid questions over whether Mr Biden will even run all.

She was interviewed on CNN’s State of the Union by the network’s Dana Bash, who asked the congresswoman whether “you would support him”, given statements from the president indicating that he plans to run for reelection despite already being the oldest person to ever take office in the White House.

“I think we should endorse when we get to it, but I believe that the president has been doing a very good job so far,” she said of Mr Biden.

“You know, if the president chooses to run again in 2024, I mean first of all I’m focused on winning this majority right now,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez added, laughing. “So we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, but I think that if the president has a vision then that’s something that we’re all certainly willing to entertain and examine when the time comes.”

The non-answer is significant given recent media reports indicating that Bernie Sanders, the progressive senator who was Mr Biden’s most serious challenger for the Democratic nomination in 2020, has not ruled out a primary bid against the sitting president in 2024.

Currently chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Mr Sanders has been a strong supporter of the president’s Build Back Better agenda in the face of opposition from centrists like Joe Manchin but has also called for the president to take action on progressive priorities including cancelling student loan debt.

Ms Ocasio-Cortez, who enjoys her own substantial following on the progressive left rivaling that of Mr Sanders and only a handful of others, endorsed Mr Sanders’s candidacy for the Democratic nomination in late 2019 shortly after the Vermont senator suffered a mild stroke that some worried would knock him out of the race.

She remains a member of the so-called “Squad”, a growing number of progressive Democrats in the House who have notably broken with their Democratic colleagues on a number of issues ranging from support for military aid for Israel’s government and recently the decision to uncouple the bipartisan infrastructure compromise legislation from Mr Biden’s Build Back Better Act, a strategic move that many on the left blamed for the subsequent failure of the latter legislation.