Alexandria Ocasio Cortez says Democrats need new leadership and defends project for state

Washington dc – Puerto Rican Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez said today that Democrats must seek new leadership in Congress, but warned that there is no plan to adequately fill the gap left by Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer.

In an interview with the podcast Intercepted, Ocasio Cortez, elected by a New York district, said that because there are “so many nefarious forces at play,” there is a fear that promoting change now would cause “something even worse.”

With his remarks, Ocasio Cortez made it clear that Democrats, while likely to have Pelosi as Speaker of the lower house and Schumer as the leader of the Senate in the session beginning in January, must start thinking in a new leadership.

For Pelosi, the 117th session of Congress could be his last at the Federal Capitol. Schumer still aspires to be the leader of the Senate majority. It won’t be until Jan. 5, in two second rounds in Georgia, that it will be decided whether Democrats or Republicans will control the Senate.

He ruled out, for example, refusing to vote for Pelosi in January, unless the speaker gave way to the Medicare for All bill promoted by independent Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont). According to the legislature, the Liberals would lose a vote on Medicare for everyone in the House of Commons.

If so, Ocasio Cortez maintained that she is not ready to be a leadership option in the lower house. “The House of Representatives is extraordinarily complex and I’m not ready. I know I can’t do this job,” said Ocasio Cortez, to stress that it is not being proposed as an alternative.

The 31-year-old Puerto Rican congresswoman is a star among the Liberals, although she has just finished her first two-year term in the lower house. She was re-elected last November.

There have been speculations that Ocasio Cortez might be thinking of running for a Senate seat in New York soon. Senators for New York Schumer and Kirsten Gillibran will run for re-election in 2022 and 2024, respectively.

In the interview, Ocasio Cortez again denounced the Promise Act for considering that still under the colonial system, it deprives Puerto Rico of fiscal autonomy and imposes a Fiscal Oversight Board (JSF) that it considers responds to Wall Street interests.

He also defended the bill he has co-sponsored with fellow Puerto Rican Democratic congresswoman Nydia Velázquez to link Congress to a Status Convention in Puerto Rico that allows for decolonization of the island and facilitates a process of self-determination.

Ocasio Cortez argued that they are pushing for “true free determination, not these Creole plebiscites” that have been held on the island and have had no consequences.