JUST IN: AOC doubles down on Biden support

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is all in for Joe Biden, even as her colleagues flee the president like rats from a sinking ship. Speaking to reporters on Monday, she said that she had "spoken to the president over the weekend." She made the comments as Congress returned from the July 4 recess.

"I have spoken to him extensively," she said, "he made clear then and he has made clear since that he is in this race. The matter is closed. He has reiterated that this morning." Many of AOC's House colleagues have sought to find a replacement for Biden on the Democrat ticket, urging him to bow out of the race. His VP Kamala Harris, appearing at the Essence Awards in New Orleans over the weekend, seemed poised to take power should her boss be ousted from his pursuit of a second term in the Oval Office.

On Monday morning, Biden sent a letter to Congressional Democrats demanding that they unify around him to beat Donald Trump. "I am firmly committed to staying in this race," he said, "to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump." It was to this that AOC was referring. Biden said "We have one job. And that is to beat Donald Trump. We have 42 days to the Democratic Convention and 119 days to the general election. Any weakening of resolve or lack of clarity about the task ahead only helps Trump and hurts us. It is time to come together, move forward as a unified party, and defeat Donald Trump."

"He has reiterated that to the public," she went on. "Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race and I support him. Now what I think is critically important right now is that we focus on what it takes to win in November. Because he is running against Donald Trump, who is a man with 34 felony convictions that has committed 34 felony crimes and not a single Republican has asked Donald Trump to not be the nominee."



Those 34 crimes are constituted of a collection of invoices, checks and receipts issued by, or given to, Trump's then-attorney Michael Cohen that were entered into bookkeeping records as "legal fees." Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg alleged that the payments were not legal fees but reimbursements to the attorney and claimed further that these bookkeeping entries constituted the crime of falsified business records, a misdemeanor in the state of New York. However, Bragg further alleged that Trump had intentionally been misleading in the bookkeeping records in order to interfere in the 2020 election, which Bragg contends Trump would not have won had it been known that he was accused of having an affair with a porn star.

AOC continued, saying "I'm here to win on this democracy and I'm here to win in November, and what's critically important is what the president, I believe, that the president needs to do, and I have communicated this, what what the president and the White House should do in order to make sure that we win in November. And that is making sure that we pivot and working, and increasingly commit to the issues that are critically important to working people across this country."

She said these issues include Medicare expansion and Social Security and providing "relief" to people's rents and mortgages. "If we can do that and continue our work on student loans, secure a ceasefire and bring those dollars back to investing in public policy, then that's how we win in November. That's what I'm committed to and that's what I want to make sure that we secure."