Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday sidestepped a reporter`s question about Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has faced backlash since moderate Senate Democrats agreed to reopen the government.

Ocasio-Cortez - when asked if Schumer, the least popular Democratic Senate leader in roughly four decades, should stay in the post - pointed to what`s "so important for folks to understand."

"This problem is bigger than one person and it actually is bigger than the minority leader in the Senate," she said. The congresswoman has been floated as a potential primary challenger to Schumer in 2028.

"You had eight Senate Democrats who coordinated their own votes on this as well as ... you have two retiring members, many of them are also up in several cycles from now with the hope that people are going to forget this moment."

She stressed that a party leader is a "reflection of a party" and Senate Democrats select who to represent them.

The congresswoman - who has swerved away from questions about challenging for Schumer`s Senate seat - went on to note several Senate primaries this cycle and, while she`s been asked about New York in 2028, said she`s pointed her constituents to races happening next year.

Moments earlier, when asked how she felt being back on Capitol Hill after the long recess, she discussed federal workers missing paychecks and disruptions to SNAP payments as a result of the shutdown, which did not amount to an extension of soon-to-expire health care subsidies.

"We have to figure out what that was for because you had both the capitulation in the Senate and you have the refusal and the outright cruelty among House Republicans and the White House, who went to court to try to sue for their ability to deny people`s access to food," she said.

"This is the reality that we`re in right now and we need to act like it and we cannot enable this kind of cruelty with our cowardice, period."
embed