AOC on Presidential Run: ‘My Ambitions Are Bigger Than That’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said her political aspirations go beyond becoming president, as she addressed speculation she is preparing to run for the White House in 2028.

“My ambition is to change this country,” said the New York Democrat and leader of the progressive House faction, “The Squad,” in a conversation with President Barack Obama’s former top political adviser David Axelrod Friday at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics.

“They assume that my ambition is positional; they assume that my ambition is a title or a seat,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And my ambition is way bigger than that.”

“Presidents come and go; Senate, House seats, elected officials come and go, but single-payer healthcare is forever. A living wage is forever. Workers’ rights are forever. Women’s rights, all of that,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

While the former bartender was criticized for her lack of foreign policy expertise at the Global Economic Forum in January, Ocasio-Cortez has proven to be an agenda-setter for the Democrats.

The congresswoman says she wakes up in the morning asking, “What move or decision can I make today that’s going to get us closer to that future, stronger, faster, and better than yesterday?”

Her main moves tend to revolve around attacking the wealthy.

A War on Billionaires

After receiving mockery for her statement last week that “You can’t earn a billion dollars,” Ocasio-Cortez doubled down in her chat with Axelrod, claiming that “The American Revolution was against the billionaires of their time, and we are declaring independence from such an extreme marriage of wealth and the state, that the voices of everyday people did not exist.”

She also claimed billionaires are trying to thwart her ambitions to change the country, conveniently ignoring those billionaires who bankroll the progressive agenda.

“No billionaire can stop that,” she said. “No concentrated level of power and no elite, no gatekeeper, can prevent me from doing everything I can,” she said.

Ocasio-Cortez then reiterated her mission of “waking up every day in service of the working class” can be accomplished anywhere.

“I can do that in the House, in the Senate. I can do that in the White House,” she said. “I can do it from a shack in upstate New York chopping wood and being a burnout. I can do it from anywhere.”

A Yale Youth Poll from fall 2025 revealed Ocasio-Cortez has strong backing among young Democrats versus other potential presidential candidates. There Ocasio-Cortez leads among Democrats under 35 with 32% support.