Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responds to Democratic debate, and wins a standing ovation
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- Hollie Richardson
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Proving her popularity once more, the Late Night with Stephen Colbert audience chanted “AOC!” during Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s appearance on the show after the Democratic debate.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was welcomed with a standing ovation and supportive “AOC!” chants on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Wednesday evening (26 June).
The youngest ever congresswoman and representative for New York’s 14th district joined Colbert to discuss the first round of primary Democratic debates which took place earlier in the evening.
Proving her popularity with voters, the audience clapped, cheered and chanted her name as she took her seat to speak with Colbert about what happened during the debates.
Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker were among the ten presidential candidates who took to the stage for the televised debate in Miami.
Commenting on candidates Rourke and Booker, who chose to speak in Spanish as part of their answers, Ocasio-Cortez told Colbert: “I loved it, because, I represent the Bronx and there was a lot of Spanglish in the building.”
Explaining that she actually found it “humorous” in parts, she then gently teased that she worried they would say “I will not give you an answer to your question” in Spanish.
“But it was good. I thought it was a good gesture to the fact that we are a diverse country,” she added.
Asked who she thinks will make it to the next debate, The Daily Beast reported that Ocasio-Cortez first mentioned Elizabeth Warren, explaining: “I think Elizabeth Warren really distinguished herself, I think Julian Castro really distinguished himself. I think Cory Booker did a great job in talking about criminal justice.”
Looking ahead to Thursday night’s debate, which will see another ten candidates take to the stage, Ocasio-Cortez said that former Vice President Joe Biden is not necessarily the “safe choice”.
“I think it’s dangerous to assume that any candidate is a quote-unquote ‘safe choice,’” she said. “That you pick one candidate and that’s just going to deliver an election for you. But with respect to Vice President Biden, it’s more about an overall electoral strategy.”
She continued: “I think there’s this idea that we have to sacrifice everything. That we can’t talk about working class issues, that we can’t talk about criminal justice issues, that we can’t talk about immigration because it isolates this very small sliver of Obama-to-Trump voters.
“And I think that that’s a mistake. Because if we sacrifice the issues of so many communities, I think we depress turnout. And what we need is more people to turn out next year than have ever turned out in American history.”
Image: Getty