Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says Schumer and Jeffries are leading the Democrats' shutdown fight

In an interview with NBC News, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez says her caucus is "tremendously united" in demand to end shutdown.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has become a leading figure in the fight over government funding, but it's not a role she has asked for. Rather, it’s a role Republicans have thrust upon her.

“Chuck Schumer is terrified he’s going to get a primary challenge from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday. “The reason why the American people’s government is shut down is because Chuck Schumer is listening to the far-left radicals in his own party because he’s terrified of a primary challenge.”

Republican after Republican has used Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive star, as a foil in their argument that Democrats are going overboard in their demands to end the shutdown. They claim she and the left wing of the party are pressuring their more moderate leadership to hold firm.

Ocasio-Cortez made it clear in an interview with NBC News that Democratic leadership is driving the party’s strategy.

“They’re saying this stuff about me in the press, and the fact of the matter is I can tell you, in the seven years that I’ve been here, they [Republican leaders] have never given me a single phone call, because they know what the truth is,” she said. “They know that the people that they need to be negotiating with, and who they are negotiating with, are Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer,” the House and Senate Democratic leaders, both of New York.