Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of the most sought after endorsements in Democratic politics.

In the 2020 primary she endorsed Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. But now that former vice president Joe Biden is the nominee, Ocasio-Cortez wants to see him work for his endorsement, and progressive support.

Ocasio-Cortez told the New York Times in an interview that she would still uphold her pledge to support the Democratic nominee, but declined to say if she would offer a full endorsement of Biden.

"It's a tightrope," she told the Times of the pressure to balance pressuring Biden without helping Trump.

"I do not feel a choice in adhering to my principles and my integrity, and being accountable to the movement that brought me here. But also, I don't want another term of Trump."

In recent days, Biden has attempted to extend an olive branch to Sanders' progressive base by unveiling policies to lower the qualifying age for Medicare and offer some form student debt forgiveness in hopes of unifying the party.

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For the past several months, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has pledged to support the eventual Democratic nominee for president. But with former vice president Joe Biden now the presumptive nominee, the star of the progressive left has made it clear that her endorsement will not come without policy concessions.

The freshman congresswoman from New York supported Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, but after he dropped out this month, her coveted support is once again up for grabs.

But Ocasio-Cortez has long been skeptical of Biden. In May 2019, she told the Guardian that she would be "hard pressed" to support him in the primary. In January 2020, she told New York Magazine that, "In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party, but in America, we are."

Now that the primary is over a new interview with Ocasio-Cortez in the New York Times illustrates the challenges that Biden might face in winning over one of the most popular figures in the Democratic Party.

In the interview, Ocasio-Cortez emphasized her priority that Democrats defeat Trump and upheld her pledge to support the Democratic nominee. But to what degree that support was offered depended on Biden's willingness to work with progressives on issues like immigration and healthcare.

Ocasio-Cortez said that she and Biden had never spoken, and when asked if her endorsement of Biden was a "sure thing," the congresswoman hedged.

"I've always said that I will support the Democratic nominee," she said. "But unity is a process, and figuring out what that looks like is part of this whole conversation that I think Bernie and [Elizabeth] Warren and other folks are a part of as well."

Pressed on her response, she later added, "What I want to do is to be able to go out and say, 'This is the plan for us,' But it's hard to do that if there's no plan for us."

She pointed to Biden's struggle to win over Latino and young voters during the primary as evidence that Biden needed to expand his policy offerings to win over a broader camp of voters.

"It's a tightrope," she told the Times of the challenge of balancing party unity to defeat Trump with pressuring Biden to move to the left. "I do not feel a choice in adhering to my principles and my integrity, and being accountable to the movement that brought me here. But also, I don't want another term of Trump."

Since becoming the presumptive nominee, Biden has tried to make policy overtures to Sanders' supporters. Last week, he introduced a proposal to lower the elibility for Medicare from age 65 to 60 and expand student loan forgiveness to some low-income and middle-class individuals.

But Ocasio-Cortez told the Times that his Medicare proposal did not go far enough — she pointed to proposals that would lower the requirement to 50 — and said he needed to assure Latino and immigrant voters that he was willing to make concessions on the issue of deportations and a pathway to citizenship.

"There's this talk about unity as this kind of vague, kumbaya, kind of term. Unity and unifying isn't a feeling, it's a process," she said. The whole process of coming together should be uncomfortable for everyone involved — that's how you know it's working. And if Biden is only doing things he's comfortable with, then it's not enough."

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