Washington, D.C. – Today, MoveOn Political Action highlighted a video from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slamming reckless Green Party candidate Jill Stein as “predatory” and “not serious.” 

 In the video, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez answers a question from one of her followers, endorses a multi-party system that builds genuine political power for the progressive movement, and also criticizes Stein’s failure to build any power for her stated causes despite running for office for over “years and years and years and years in a row.” Stein previously ran for president in 2012 and 2016. ]

A transcript of the video is below:

I’m not coming for people who are thinking about this. What I have a problem with is the fact that if you are running for president you are the de facto leader of your party. 

And first of all, trust me on this: I run as a third-party candidate in New York. I’ve also run as a Working Families Party candidate, in addition to running as a Democrat. Because trust me, I've been on record of my criticisms of a two-party system, so this isn't about that. 

You are the leader of your party, and if you run for years and years and years and years in a row, and your party hasn't grown, and you haven't run city council seats and down-ballot candidates and you don't add state electeds, that’s bad leadership. 

And that to me is what’s upsetting because if you have been your party’s nominee for twelve years in a row – four years ago, and four years before that and four years before that. And you cannot grow your movement, pretty much at all, and can’t pursue any successful strategy. And all you do is show up once every four years to speak to people who are justifiably pissed off, but you're just showing up once every four years to do that, you're not serious. 

To me, it doesn’t read as authentic, it reads as predatory. I’m sorry. I’m just saying it. Because as a person, I endorse Working Families Party candidates. I endorse DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) candidates. I take risks, and I endorse even in primaries against Democrats when it’s merited. What does this person do to grow power? 

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