Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez interrupted House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy during a floor speech railing against President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda on Thursday.
"Just a few weeks ago, Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger said, ‘Nobody elected Joe Biden to be FDR,’" the California Republican said.
“I did,” Ocasio-Cortez shouted back.
https://t.co/bupWXi5USH pic.twitter.com/DWMFDz7qgM
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) November 19, 2021
Spanberger was among the more moderate Democrats drawing attention to the Democratic Party's problems after the election results earlier this month.
“We were so willing to take seriously a global pandemic, but we’re not willing to say, ‘Yeah, inflation is a problem, and supply chain is a problem, and we don’t have enough workers in our work force,’” said Representative Abigail Spanberger, a Virginia Democrat facing a bruising re-election. “We gloss over that and only like to admit to problems in spaces we dominate.”
More pointedly, Ms. Spanberger said Mr. Biden must not forget that, for many voters, his mandate was quite limited: to remove former President Donald J. Trump from their television screens and to make American life ordinary again.
“Nobody elected him to be F.D.R., they elected him to be normal and stop the chaos,” she said, alluding to the sweeping agenda the president is seeking to enact with the thinnest of legislative majorities. (NYT)
Prior to Biden's election, AOC expressed confidence that Democrats could "push" him to become more progressive.
"[O]ne of the reasons why I was supportive of Senator Sanders was because of how progressive his stances are, but, you know, the primaries are over, and right now what is most important is to make sure that we ensure a Democratic victory in November and that we continue to push Vice President Biden on issues from marijuana to climate change to foreign policy,” Ocasio-Cortez told “Just the News” in September of 2020. "I think, overall, we can likely push Vice President Biden in a more progressive direction across policy issues," she said. "I think foreign policy is an enormous area where we can improve; immigration is another one.”