Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Says Rallying Around Joe Biden Is ‘An Issue Of Life And Death’

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appeared on Wednesday’s edition of The View and spoke about Donald Trump‘s administration and its response to the coronavirus pandemic. As reported by Breitbart, the progressive congresswoman believes that it’s crucial for Democrats — even former Bernie Sanders supporters — to rally behind Joe Biden, the party’s presumptive nominee.

At one point, co-host Whoopi Goldberg asked Ocasio-Cortez if she would be following in Sanders’ footsteps and endorsing Biden.

“Yeah, absolutely,” she said. “I think, you know, I think right now just the stakes are too high when it comes to another four years of Trump. ”

The 30-year-old politician noted the destruction that her community has allegedly faced due to Trump’s policies. She then claimed that supporting Biden is “an issue of life and death.”

“We have had kids in cages. We have had a pandemic response that happened way too late that has cost us lives. We have people that don’t have access to critical care that they need. I think it’s really important that we rally behind our Democratic nominee in November.”

Although Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Sanders and campaigned with the Vermont senator, she noted that one of the eventual party nominees is going to run the country. While some Sanders supporters are refusing to vote for Biden, who is unsupportive of the majority of his former rival’s platform, Ocasio-Cortez suggested the difference between a Biden and Trump presidency when it comes to the impact on vulnerable communities is significant.

Before Sanders dropped out, Ocasio-Cortez claimed that Sanders would have a better chance of taking on Trump in the industrial Midwest due to his supposedly more robust support with Independent voters. Given this purported advantage, the congresswoman claimed that the Vermont lawmaker was better suited to defeat Trump in 2020 than Biden. She made it a point to claim that her sentiments stemmed from data and not her and Sanders’ overlapping political beliefs.

In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Sanders expressed similar sentiments as his former campaign trail partner and appeared to distance himself from his campaign’s former national press secretary, Briahna Joy Gray, who refused to endorse Biden. He suggested that it is “irresponsible” of people not to be involved with the Democratic Party simply because they disagree with the former vice president.

Others, such as progressive commentator Krystal Ball, who was an outspoken advocate of Sanders, suggest that his approach to people like Gray — which she likened to “trashing his own supporters” — is the reason he lost the primary.

“He was more committed to maintaining power for Dems than claiming it for his own movement,” she tweeted.