Biden: Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t represent the future of the Democratic Party

The blue wave in the 2018 midterms brought it share of liberal/progressive victories, but it also brought some very centrist victories — for example, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s victory in Arizona and the reelection of Sen. Joe Manchin in West Virginia. In the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, the frontrunners include former Vice President Joe Biden (a centrist) along with staunch progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren. And Biden, in an interview for “Axios on HBO,” essentially said that while he welcomes Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ participation in the Democratic Party, it’s a mistake to think she represents the party on the whole.

Referring to the media, Biden told Axios’ Mike Allen, “You guys got it all wrong about what happened… You all thought that what happened was the party moved extremely to the left after Hillary (Clinton). AOC was a new party. She’s a bright, wonderful person. But where’s the party? Come on, man.”

All of the 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls favor universal health care, but they have very different views on how to achieve that. Sanders and Warren are proposing a Medicare-for-all program, while centrists like Biden and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota have called for an aggressive expansion of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, a.k.a. Obamacare, and are open to a public health option.

“The party's not there,” Biden said of Medicare-for-all. “The party’s not there at all.”