He may be AOK with AOC.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is enough of a political animal that he might end up backing socialist “Squad” star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez if, fueled by the success of far-left radicals in Tuesday’s primaries, she decides to run for president, insiders said.
That comes after a career of pragmatic legislating — even penning a 2007 book about winning back a middle-class majority.
“Schumer’s a smart enough person where if it is that time [for an AOC White House run], he would probably be one of her biggest champions,” said a longtime New York Democratic operative.
The 75-year-old Schumer has hitched his wagon to local left-wingers before and outlasted former rival Hillary Clinton, who he endorsed for president back in 2013, declaring 2016 to be “Hillary’s time.”
“Run, Hillary, run!” he then urged the former first lady.
Ocasio-Cortez (D-Queens, Bronx), 36, has backed off targeting fellow House Democratic incumbents, and in 2024 she began paying $260,000 in yearly dues to the party’s campaign fundraising arm — a nod to the establishment Dems running the show.
However, the socialist firebrand and her fellow comrades are gaining momentum trying to move Dems’ far-left base from fringe to mainstream — including Tuesday’s primary victories by three far-left House candidates backed by NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
“She went from being an outsider to being an insider,” said the operative.
Kamala Harris invited Ocasio-Cortez to speak at the Democratic National Convention in 2024, where AOC vouched that the party’s presidential nominee was “working tirelessly to secure a cease-fire in Gaza.”
The move brought a rebuke last week from Democratic Socialist of America honcho Kareem Elrafai in The Nation, who demanded Ocasio-Cortez apologize for telling a “lie” to the public by claiming the “very people perpetrating a genocide were actually ‘working tirelessly’ to stop it.”
One establishment Democratic aide insisted that after years of conversations, AOC has “real respect for, and perhaps even, an affinity for Schumer.”
That could be the basis of an unexpected accommodation.
“He is willing to listen to her, and that matters to her,” the aide said.
AOC was coy this week when asked about running for Senate, telling a Fox News reporter “I’m not going to be breaking any news here.”
After serving 45 years in Congress – including the last 27 years in the Senate – Schumer’s clout and time on Capitol Hill is running out, predicted a Republican operative working midterm campaigns nationwide.
“If Schumer somehow survives Democrats’ 2026 socialist takeover, AOC’s 2028 challenge will finish the job and send him into retirement,” the source predicted.
Schumer declined to address his political future or a potential Ocasio-Cortez presidential run, but he insisted Dems would rally together to take back Capitol Hill and the White House.
“We need to look at the entire country,” he said in a statement to The Post.
“We have centrists making real gains in New Jersey, Iowa, and Virginia, and progressive energy here in New York City. At the end of the day, my sole focus is one thing: taking back the Senate and reversing the damage Donald Trump has done to the United States.”
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