Steve Bannon: Republicans are the 'working-class party;' needs to 'find our AOCs'
WASHINGTON - Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon says the Republican Party is now more representative of "working-class" voters and urged party leaders to "find our AOCs" for upcoming elections.
Bannon was referring to freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., a former waitress and bartender who, at 29, became the youngest person ever elected to Congress, defeating a well-known and powerful incumbent in New York's 14th congressional district.
Ocasio-Cortez, nicknamed "AOC", has since risen to prominence in the media and on Capitol Hill.
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During a sit-down interview with The Guardian, the former Breitbart News executive chairman claimed, “We’ve turned the Republican Party into a working-class party. Now, interestingly, we don’t have any elected representatives who believe that, but that’s a legacy issue. We’ll get over that.”
"We’ve got to find our AOCs,” Bannon continued, while admitting that Democrats had "better casting” in the 2018 midterm elections, which lead to Democrats regaining control of the House majority. Democrats led Republicans in House races by a whopping 8.6 million votes in last year's midterms.
Bannon said that while he doesn't agree with Ocasio-Cortez's political ideology, he still admired her.
“They did an amazing job in '18. I keep saying I admire AOC," Bannon explained. "I want to recruit bartenders. I don’t want to recruit any more lawyers. I want bartenders.”
Though Bannon had a falling out with Trump, he has continually defended the president, even starting a podcast called, “War Room: Impeachment” aimed at helping the GOP with messaging during the impeachment proceedings.
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Bannon hat-tipped former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who spent $110 million in 2018 through his super PAC to help Democratic candidates get elected. Democrats won 21 of the 24 races he supported.
“People are missing the point about Bloomberg,” Bannon stated of the billionaire, who recently announced that he was entering the 2020 Democratic primary race. “Trump wouldn’t be impeached if it were not for Bloomberg. It’s Bloomberg’s hundred million dollars that won the seats."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Steve Bannon: Republicans are the 'working-class party find our AOCs
