Former AOC Comms Director: Democrats Need To Prove That This Is The Party That Should Be In Charge
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2026/10/15/former_aoc_comms_director_democrats_need_to_prove_that_this_is_the_party_that_should_be_in_charge.html

Corbin Trent, former communications director for U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, appeared on CNN on Thursday and said that Democrats need to decide if they are going to be a progressive FDR party or a status quo Clinton party.

"Is it the Bill Clinton Democratic Party that shows up in Washington or is it the FDR Democratic Party that shows up? And I think the FDR Democratic Party is the one that sent us on to generational majorities and supermajorities. And the Bill Clinton party is the one that sort of preceded, you know, thousands and thousands of losses across this country,"

BRIANNA KEILER, CNN ANCHOR: We're joined now by Corbin Trent, he served as Communications Director for Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez. He's also host of the show, A Fight Worth Having. Corbin, thank you so much for being with us. We see AOC campaigning there for Abdul El-Sayed. What's her objective, if you had to distill it down?

CORBIN TRENT, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: Help win that race, help get a majority in the Senate, I think that's the way I would distill it. She's also helped with Angie Nixon in Florida. You're seeing basically everybody that's got a deep connection to the Democratic Party and high favorability showing up in Michigan, whether it's Barack Obama, Harris, or Alexandria.

That's a useful, super good thing. I think this election is going to come down to turnout, sort of whichever team scores the most points I guess wins the game is obvious, but I think what's driving the polls is a depression among Republican voters, more than Republican voters switching to Democrats. But I think what's going to be really important for us as a party and as a nation is if the Democrats do take the House and the Senate, what we do with that trust that the American people have given us.

Right now, you were just talking in the previous segment about how low Trump's approval ratings is around all the policies that he's promoting, but the thing that's nearly as bad in terms of favorability is the Democratic Party. It just happens to be less unpopular than Republican Party and Trump, right? So we've still got work to do as a party to prove that this is the party that should be in charge.

KEILER: Okay, so it sounds like you see her sort of building the excitement, trying to up that turnout there. She did make a direct appeal to Republicans. I mean, you said it's not maybe necessarily about flipping Republicans, but she made a direct appeal to Republicans.

She said she hoped they were in the room. If that's you, I want to welcome you here. She said, I want to thank you for keeping an open mind and an open ear, stressing we're better together than we are apart. Is she the right messenger for that? Do you think Republicans are open to hearing from AOC?

TRENT: I think any American is going to have a lot of convincing to do to rebuild our trust in our government, to rebuild our trust in politicians. One of the things that's also leading the polls as far as one thing that concerns people is corruption in our government. We have massive amounts of corruption and right now it's running sort of unchecked at an unparalleled rate, but it's been a problem for a long time.

So I think absolutely people like Alexandria, people like Bernie, people like Barack Obama, Harris, anybody out there that can say, hey, we need to do something differently. We need to restore confidence in our government and our elected officials and then follow through with that. I think that's going to be the, you know, everybody's heard the wind blow.