 In an interview with Jeremy Skahill, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said what I think we all really wanted to hear someone in Congress say. We wanted to hear her say that current Democratic Party leadership, they're not good. They're bad. And I think that like it's easy to criticize them. Like we saw Rashida Tlaib and AOC condemn Nancy Pelosi before taking office, but once they were sworn in and you're working with this individual directly, and you have that workplace dynamic and Nancy Pelosi is no longer a politician in your mind, but she's a colleague, it gets a little bit awkward. But AOC said what I think is really important, more people need to say this because if one person is brave enough in Congress to speak out, I hope this leads to a domino effect. But having said that, let's get to what she actually said. So Scott Wong of The Hill reports, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she is not ready to be speaker, but lamented that the Democratic Party desperately needs new leadership and that speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer need to go. In an interview with the Intercepts podcast, the progressive hero and firebrand said the Democrats have failed to create a succession plan once Pelosi and her generation of long time leaders, many of them now in their 80s, step aside. Pelosi has indicated that this upcoming two-year term will be her last as speaker. I do think that we need new leadership in the Democratic Party. The internal dynamics of the House has made it such that there's very little option for succession, said Ocasio-Cortez, who is 31. It's easy for someone to say, oh well, you know, why don't you run, but the House is extraordinarily complex and I'm not ready. It can't be me. I know that I couldn't do that job. Even conservative members of the party who think Nancy Pelosi is far too liberal for them don't necessarily have viable alternatives, which is why whenever there's a challenge it kind of collapses, she continued. And that is, I think, the result of just many years of power being concentrated in leadership with lack of real grooming of a next generation of leadership. Asked directly if Pelosi and Schumer need to go, Ocasio-Cortez replied. I mean, I think so. But she again cautioned that the party has no succession plan or serious candidates who could fill that vacuum. The hesitancy that I have is that I want to make sure that if we're pointing people in a direction that we have a plan, Ocasio-Cortez said, and my concern, and this I acknowledge as a failing as something that we need to sort out, is that there isn't a plan. How do we fill that vacuum? Because if you create that vacuum, there are so many nefarious forces at play to fill that vacuum with something even worse. And so the actual sad state of affairs is that there are folks more conservative that even they are willing to fill that void. Yeah. So I think that she's making a valid point. Nancy Pelosi is terrible as speaker, but every time there's a challenge, it has failed. And the only plausible person to replace Nancy Pelosi is someone measurably worse, Steny Hoyer or Hakim Jeffries, who would be virtually identical to Nancy Pelosi. And really, the goal was to have Barbara Lee be the speaker or at least get in a position to become the speaker. And she ran for caucus chair and she got leapfrogs by Hakim Jeffries. So now we're in the situation where the next wave of leadership in the Democratic Party looks identical to the current leadership of the Democratic Party when really we should be looking at a turnover. Like the leaders in the Democratic Party, they have to give a power, but they've been clinging to power for dear life. And it's in this situation where the party has become stagnant. Their ideas are old and antiquated and new blood isn't able to take over. Like their obstacles to progress. And this is a real issue. And the thing about Nancy Pelosi is she has a lot of power because she controls the committee appointments. And on top of that, what's key here is fundraising. So Democrats don't want to speak out and then she cuts them off. Doesn't give them more money because she is, you know, a phenomenal fundraiser. That's why she's the speaker. So, you know, if you're going to take a shot at Nancy Pelosi, you can't miss. It's extremely frustrating because you think that a party who's serious about winning and setting up, you know, the party for future generations to take control of, they would be more welcoming to new voices like AOC. They would be trying to put in mechanisms that assist the future generations with taking control of the party. But, you know, if anything, we've seen the opposite. And it's not just, you know, a problem with House Democrats. We've seen, you know, a new generation of young people rally around Bernie Sanders. And sure, he's not young, but he's someone who has ideas that are new that young people identify with. And Obama stepped in. He came out of hiding, stepped in, and got everyone to drop out to back Joe Biden and we're back to square one, where we see the same people in control of the Democratic Party. And of course, who's Joe Biden filling up his administration with? Obama-era alum. And if you look to who the Obama-era alum was, it was Clinton-era alum. And this is another point that AOC made throughout this interview. And it's just we keep seeing the same people shuffled around. And it's not working. It's not working. We need new blood. But more importantly, we need new ideas, ideas that are popular. It's honestly shameful that the party isn't on board with legalizing recreational marijuana. It's disgusting that during a pandemic, we can't get Medicare for all to even have a vote. So look, leadership is the problem. And I know that Nancy Pelosi rightfully takes a lot of the blame for this, but you also have to look to really powerful Democrats on committee positions. Richie Neal is one of them who single-handedly, you know, does a lot to obstruct progress when it comes to Medicare for all. So leadership has got to change. And until we have that turnover, it's going to be really difficult to accomplish anything, even if we get a progressive president. So what AOC is doing here is really important, like speaking out and condemning leadership, saying we need new leadership. That in and of itself is a really important first step to correcting the problem, because before you can even solve a problem, you've got to admit that there's a problem in the first place. And I know that AOC knew this, but it's just really nice to hear her say this. And I hope that others will join her so she's not alone in condemning leadership.