Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., appears to be taking a page from the Biden playbook.
Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive darling and outspoken “Squad” member of Congress, has emerged in early 2028 primary polls, appearing alongside former Vice President Kamala Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as presidential contenders. Her admirers in the Democratic Party have also floated her as a potential primary challenger to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D, N.Y.
Despite all the buzz she has generated, Ocasio-Cortez has kept a relatively low profile, at least compared to the likes of Harris and Newsom. Axios called out her “hide-and-seek strategy with the press,” noting she has done “a fraction of what other potential 2028 candidates for president have done” as far as interviews go this year.
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Her last interview with a national news outlet was Feb. 28 with NPR. Before that, she spoke with CNN’s Jake Tapper in January, ex-CNN anchor Don Lemon on his YouTube show as well as The New York Times in February. Notably, she has only done two interviews with national outlets since her widely-mocked appearance at the Munich Security Conference.
More recently, she’s spoken with two local New York television stations and appeared on far-left actress/comedian Ilana Glazer’s podcast. On Friday, she sat down with former Obama advisor David Axelrod at the University of Chicago, where she was asked about her political ambitions.
Ocasio-Cortez declined to be interviewed by Axios for its report, but her chief of staff, Mike Casca, told the outlet, “She takes questions multiple times a day from the press. And anyone with a press credential is able to find her in the Capitol and ask her questions.”
That talking point, however, strongly resembles the ones made by the White House in defense of former President Joe Biden.
Throughout his four years in office, Biden faced scrutiny for his lack of access to the press, particularly when he’d go several weeks without giving interviews or press conferences. In 2022, for example, Biden granted only seven sit-down interviews with journalists.
Biden’s White House press secretaries, Jen Psaki and Karine Jean-Pierre, both offered staunched defenses of their boss.
“The President takes questions several times a week,” Psaki said in 2021. “He answered questions, I think, three times last week… He takes questions nearly every time he is out speaking to the American people.”
“It is also unprecedented that a president takes as many shouted questions as this president has,” Jean-Pierre said in 2023.
A common retort critics had towards that defense was that taking fleeting questions from reporters often does not allot room to ask follow-up questions like a sit-down interview with a journalist would.
While Ocasio-Cortez has largely avoided the national press in recent months, she continues to be a prolific social media user, often posting videos of herself talking directly to her 4 million TikTok followers and her 9.6 million Instagram followers.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s office did not address questions Fox News Digital sent regarding her media strategy.
