Politics

‘Make Room For New Voices’: Obama Scolds Dems For Not Giving AOC Longer Speech At Convention

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Former president Barack Obama chastised the Democratic party for failing to give New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez enough speaking time at the DNC in an interview uploaded Tuesday.

“One thing I will say about the Democratic Party, promoting young people is really important. We stick so long with the same old folks and don’t make room for new voices,” Obama told Snapchat’s “Good Luck America.”

“The fact that AOC only got, what? Three minutes or five minutes? When she speaks to a broad section of young people who are interested in what she has to say, even if they don’t agree with everything she says,” he continued. “New blood is always good. And I say that as somebody who used to be the young, shiny cool guy. But now is the gray-haired old grizzled vet.”

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The former president also addressed socialism in his party and urged supporters to move past “labels and ideology.”

“Socialism is still a loaded term for a lot of folks,” he said. “Once again instead of talking labels and ideology we should focus on getting certain things done. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders both agree about raising the minimum wage. Nobody really cares about the label, they care that that is something that is important to a lot of young people and a lot of older people alike.”

Obama also paralleled similarities between President-elect Joe Biden and Ocasio-Cortez on climate change.

The Democrat appeared in the interview to discuss his new book “A Promised Land,” which sold nearly 900,000 copies within one day of its initial release, according to the Washington Examiner.