Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Calls Out Fellow Democrats for Being ‘Too Reflexively Anti-Republican’

New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined a growing number of Democrats who are seeking to work as much as possible with President-elect Donald Trump in his second term.

Ocasio-Cortez, who belongs to the progressive faction of her party in Congress, said in remarks to Punchbowl News on Wednesday that she will support policies from Trump that align with her beliefs.

“The reason why I think oftentimes Democrats occasionally lose elections is because we’re too reflexively anti-Republican, and that we don’t lean into an ambitious vision for working-class Americans strongly enough,” she told the outlet.

Punchbowl indeed reported that many other Democrats are taking an approach different from the resistance-style efforts seen during the first Trump administration.

Particular issues on which some Democrats think they can find common ground with the incoming commander-in-chief include securing the border, reforming wasteful government spending, and advancing certain economic reforms.

“I don’t think the American people want extremism, but they do want changes at the border,” Florida Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz told the outlet.

The lawmaker said that his party is trying to address the election loss by acknowledging that they were out of touch with voters on particularly important matters, like immigration.

“On some of these issues, we were to the left of the American people,” he admitted.

Several Democrats support the Laken Riley Act, an immigration reform bill that passed the House on Tuesday: 48 Democrats in the lower chamber voted for the bill, an increase of 11 votes from that faction during the last Congress, according to Punchbowl.

“We should pursue every opportunity around border security and immigration reform,” Ohio Democratic Rep. Greg Landsman told the outlet.

“That’s number one, and number two is getting costs down,” he added.

As the bill advances, Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, and other Democratic members of the upper chamber are expected to back the effort.

Many of the Democrats who voted for the Laken Riley Act hail from swing districts or states and could face difficult re-election battles in two years, but others are from more solidly blue districts.

Fetterman has called on his Democratic colleagues to seek some level of bipartisanship with the Trump administration.

He noted on Tuesday that there are “a lot of freak-outs” from Democrats over issues like the potential acquisition of Greenland.

But he said the idea from Trump is a “responsible conversation” toward which Democrats should not viscerally react.

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