AOC, campaigning for Bernie Sanders, says it would 'be an honor' to be VP
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y., said it would "be an honor to be vice president” in a recent Spanish-language interview Sunday before headlining a Las Vegas campaign event for Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The 30-year-old freshman congresswoman quickly pointed out that she falls five years short of the constitutional age limit to be vice president. The vice president – and president – must be at least 35 years old.
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“It’d be an honor to be vice president,” Ocasio-Cortez told "Noticias Telemundo" correspondent Guadalupe Venegas in Las Vegas. “I can’t because I’m not old enough.”
Ocasio-Cortez gave a keynote address at Sanders’ Spanish-language town hall in Las Vegas on Sunday. She endorsed him for the White House in October and could play a key role for the Vermont independent in seeking Nevada’s large Latino vote, differentiating himself from fellow progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
“I was a community organizer in the Bronx for Sen. Sanders during the last presidential campaign,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “That was my first experience, organizing right there in the street for an election.”
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“Before that, I did community work in education, with the Latino community and with the National Hispanic Institute, but that was my first time organizing for an election. It was an experience that I will never forget,” she continued. “It was an important part of my experience when I decided to run for Congress. I learned that there was another way of doing politics here in the U.S.”
Also in her interview with “Noticias Telemundo,” Ocasio-Cortez, whose mother is Puerto Rican, reiterated how important it was for her to continue to practice her Spanish.
“If we are first- or second-generation, it is important that we cultivate our language. I must speak and practice more to improve my own Spanish. Our language is the link with our families and our communities,” Ocasio-Cortez said. She had tweeted that she was "nervous" to host the town hall in Spanish because she doesn't speak the language often.
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She also spoke about how far she’s come over the past year and a half, since ousting a powerful incumbent Democrat in New York's 14th Congressional District in a June 2018 primary and then defeating a Republican in the general election that November.
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“Last year I worked in a taqueria, as a waitress and as a bartender, and now I am a congresswoman,” she said. “That is a huge change. But my values are the same. And we are saying the same thing we were saying last year: that we must fight for working families, for health insurance, for education for all children and a fair salary.”