Stephen Colbert on Tuesday asked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) if she’d run for president if President Joe Biden didn’t in 2024. (Watch the videos below.)
The progressive lawmaker had just watched Cassidy Hutchinson’s damning testimony to the House panel investigating Donald Trump’s role in the Capitol insurrection, so keep that in mind.
Colbert coyly noted that a certain somebody would turn 35 ― the minimum age for a presidential candidate ― by the time the election came around. That prompted Ocasio-Cortez to jokingly seek cover.
“The Late Show” host noted that Biden has repeatedly said he intends to run for reelection, but he asked Ocasio-Cortez if theoretically she’d seek the job.
“Listen, I think that we need to focus on keeping a democracy for anybody to be president in the next couple of years,” she replied. “My central focus is helping the people of this country right now.”
“So it’s possible?” Colbert pushed.
“I don’t know about that,” she said.
The lawmaker had far more definite reactions to ex-White House aide Hutchinson’s testimony that her boss, chief of staff Mark Meadows, and other top Trump officials inquired about getting pardons for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021, siege.
“It was just stunning to understand and see the detail and the depth through which there was a conscientiousness of guilt,” Ocasio-Cortez told the host. “They knew that what they were doing was wrong.”
Oscasio-Cortez also said members of Congress who asked for pardons should be expelled “without a shadow of a doubt” and possibly prosecuted.