Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) slammed former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in an interview Tuesday, suggesting that even if the billionaire candidate were to win the presidency in November, he would pave the way for “a worse Trump.”
“Obviously, we have to beat Trump, but if we beat Trump and go back to the same policies that we had before, a worse Trump is going to come. A Trump that’s more sophisticated, whose fascism is less obvious, is going to come, and things could get even worse,” Ocasio-Cortez, a prominent campaign surrogate for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said during a discussion about Bloomberg on “The Breakfast Club” radio show.
Ocasio-Cortez was also critical of Bloomberg’s record, “from stop and frisk to the surge in housing costs in New York City to even his own history on redlining to how he talks about transgender people.”
Asked by host Charlamagne tha God about Bloomberg’s endorsements from black lawmakers such as Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), Ocasio-Cortez speculated that many voters are unfamiliar with Bloomberg’s record.
“We lived under his tenure as mayor. We know exactly what he did, and this is part of what he’s doing, when he comes in, swoops in super late in the game, with billions of dollars at his disposal and is able to shower the airwaves with his cash,” she said. “People see what he’s done with his money … without seeing what he’s actually done with his power.”
Sanders has increasingly traded barbs with Bloomberg, who is not competing in any of the four early voting states and is instead focusing on Super Tuesday to establish himself as the centrist alternative to the Vermont senator. Bloomberg’s campaign recently seized on comments Sanders made over the weekend noting the success of Cuba’s literacy programs under Fidel Castro. Sanders also condemned Castro’s authoritarianism.