A senior campaign adviser to Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has defended Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) for backing the Vermont senator after she was pressed about the endorsement in an interview.
Sanders adviser Briahna Joy Gray told Hill.TV in an interview airing Wednesday that she was personally offended when a CBS News correspondent asked Ocasio-Cortez last month why she chose to back an “old white guy.”
Ocasio-Cortez, who is part of a group of prominent minority progressive congresswomen, responded by saying that she was “very excited” about her partnership with Sanders, adding it “shows what we have to do in our country” in terms of coming across race, gender and generational gaps.
“I’ve been receiving that question for quite some time now and I’ve got to say to our new endorsers: Welcome to the club,” Gray said on Hill.TV in response to the exchange.
“I’m frankly kind of insulted and blown away by the idea that another black woman who actually asked that question would be so myopic on what constitutes the issues that are important to people of color and women in this country,” she added later.
CBS correspondent Nikole Killion had asked Ocasio-Cortez the question after the New York Democrat spoke at a rally for Sanders in Queens, N.Y., last month. As Ocasio-Cortez sat next to Sanders for the interview, Killion asked, “As a woman of color, why back an old white guy? And is this the future of the party?”
Sen. @BernieSanders is getting a major boost to his presidential campaign after his heart attack nearly three weeks ago. Congresswoman @AOC endorsed him in front of more than 25,000 people at a weekend rally in New York City. @NikolenDC sat down with Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez. pic.twitter.com/Zh5JMdxTon
— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) October 21, 2019
Gray argued in the Hill.TV interview that it’s incumbent on voters to think of Democratic candidates “not in terms of pure ideology” but rather by looking at “what they’re willing to fight for.”
Killion didn’t immediately respond to Hill.TV’s request for comment.
Ocasio-Cortez was the first member of the group of progressive freshman congresswomen known as “The Squad” to back Sanders.
Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) have also come out in support of the Vermont senator, while Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) broke with her fellow “squad” members on Wednesday to endorse Sanders’s progressive rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
“I’m proud to call her my senator. I can’t wait to call her our president,” Pressley said in a video announcing the news.
—Tess Bonn
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