Joe Biden Says Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Be on Policy Panel

Joe Biden said Tuesday that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will serve on one of the policy task forces that his campaign is preparing to launch as he reaches out to supporters of Bernie Sanders and others on the left.

In an interview with the CBS affiliate in Las Vegas, Biden offered the New York congresswoman’s name as an example of the kind of person who is being included on the panels, which were announced as Sanders left the Democratic presidential race last month.

The presumptive Democratic nominee has not yet rolled out what he’s said would be a half-dozen panels addressing key policy issues. “We’ve set up joint committees together to deal with how we would deal with everything from the virus all the way down to education, the criminal justice system, the New Green Deal, etc.,” Biden said, referring to the Green New Deal, a climate initiative sponsored by Ocasio-Cortez.

Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for Ocasio-Cortez, said the representative would be on a committee that “the vice president has convened to assist with the development of climate policy.”

“She believes the movement will only be successful if we continue to apply pressure both inside and outside the system,” Hitt added.

Biden says he’s winning despite lockdown

Joe Biden pushed back Tuesday against the notion that his campaign could be suffering because he is limited to virtual events during the pandemic, and he pointed to polls that show him leading President Donald Trump.

“Right now the idea that somehow we are being hurt by my keeping to the rules and following the instructions that have been put forward by the docs is absolutely bizarre,” he said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” when asked when he would return to the campaign trail. “I reject the premise that this is hurting us.”

Since mid-March, Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has stayed in his home in Wilmington, Delaware where his campaign has built a studio for virtual events. Meanwhile, Trump has had an almost daily news conference and recently started traveling.

Biden said he missed interacting with voters and is eager to return to public events, but he would only do so following the advice of medical experts.

“The president should follow the rules instead of showing up to places without masks,” he said. — Tyler Pager

Coming up

Oregon is to hold its Democratic primary on May 19. The state has conducted all statewide contests by mail since 1998.