Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Alexandria Ocasio-CortezLawmakers fear voter backlash over failure to reach COVID-19 relief deal Why Democrats must confront extreme left wing incitement to violence The Hill Interview: Jerry Brown on climate disasters, COVID-19 and Biden's 'Rooseveltian moment' MORE (D-N.Y.) returned to her criticism of the Democratic Party's establishment on Monday, declaring the Democrats a "center or center-conservative party."

In an interview at MLK Now 2020 in New York, the freshman congresswoman lamented the unwillingness of party leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi Nancy PelosiPelosi: Ginsburg successor must uphold commitment to 'equality, opportunity and justice for all' Bipartisan praise pours in after Ginsburg's death Pelosi orders Capitol flags at half-staff to honor Ginsburg MORE (D-Calif.), to allow progressive priorities such as "Medicare For All" to reach the floor for a vote.

"We don’t have a left party in the United States,” the congresswoman said. “The Democratic Party is not a left party. The Democratic Party is a center or center-conservative party.”

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“We can’t even get a floor vote on Medicare for All. Not even a floor vote that gets voted down. We can’t even get a vote on it. So this is not a left party,” she told interviewer, journalist and best-selling author Ta-Nehisi Coates.

She and other progressive lawmakers, Ocasio-Cortez added, are "working to try to make that shift happen."

“We don’t have a left party in the United States. The Democratic Party is not a left party. The Democratic Party is a center, or a center-conservative party”



“There are left members inside the Democratic Party working to make that shift happen.” -@AOC pic.twitter.com/94717iI93D — Waleed Shahid (@_waleedshahid) January 20, 2020

Ocasio-Cortez, who joined the House last year after defeating a longtime incumbent Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), has since clashed publicly with Pelosi and other House Democrats over issues such as the Green New Deal and immigration.

She recently endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders Bernie SandersKenosha will be a good bellwether in 2020 Biden's fiscal program: What is the likely market impact? McConnell accuses Democrats of sowing division by 'downplaying progress' on election security MORE (I-Vt.) for president, joining two other members of the "squad" of progressive freshman women who all were elected in 2018.