Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said Tuesday she would “probably not” date a conservative, telling TMZ’s Charlie Cotton on Capitol Hill that dating across the aisle isn’t something she’d entertain.
“I have to say it’s probably not,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “No, you know, it’s not to, you know, no foul to people who do.”
She framed her reasoning around shared values rather than party labels.
“I think a lot of politics sometimes, at least for me, is about values, and being aligned in values I think is tremendously important,” she said.
Cotton also asked whether she’d have kids while in office. Ocasio-Cortez, 36, said parents have told her there’s never an ideal moment.
“There’s never a right time and never a perfect time,” she said.
She said imagining a baby in Washington was difficult, pointing to the cost of child care.
“It was very hard for me to imagine being able to have a baby here when child care is so expensive,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I acknowledge that I’m, relative to many Americans, I am in a place of privilege, and even I don’t know how it would be possible.”
On speculation about her political future, Ocasio-Cortez pushed back on the idea that it’s purely a career calculation. She told Democrat strategist David Axelrod in May that her ambition was “way bigger” than any title or seat, Breitbart News has reported.
The comments come weeks after Ocasio-Cortez announced she had begun freezing her eggs, saying it was a choice to “feel more in control” of her life. Conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey noted the congresswoman had “been with the same guy for years” and argued “there was no reason she couldn’t have had kids yet.”
Days after that announcement, TMZ reported that Ocasio-Cortez and her longtime partner, Riley Roberts, were no longer engaged. The split was first reported by Puck’s Leigh Ann Caldwell, who said a Democrat source had told her about it roughly 18 months earlier.
