John Delaney’s 2020 campaign accuses Ocasio-Cortez of helping Trump by pushing ‘Medicare for All’

June 03-- Jun. 3--John Delaney's long-shot 2020 campaign accused New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday of giving President Trump a helping hand by pushing "Medicare for All" as an antidote to the nation's healthcare crisis.

The press secretary for the ex-Maryland congressman took aim at Ocasio-Cortez over her blistering tweet a day earlier urging Delaney to give up his 2020 aspirations after a crowd in California loudly booed him for criticizing "Medicare for All."

"The only person Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez helped with her tweet about Congressman Delaney was Donald Trump," Michael Starr Hopkins, Delaney's press guy, tweeted. "If Democrats are serious about beating the president at the ballot box, we need less political grandstanding and more truth telling from the Bernie wing of the party."

Starr Hopkins said the 29-year-old congresswoman was trying to turn the 2020 primaries into "a popularity contest on Twitter."

"We've seen this playbook before and it ends with a second term for Donald Trump," Starr Hopkins posted.

Corbin Trent, Ocasio-Cortez's communications director, declined to comment and referred back to the congresswoman's Sunday tweet, in which she said Democrats should lay down some ground rules ahead of the primaries next year.

"Instead of obsessing over who's a 'frontrunner,' maybe we can start with some general eliminations," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in response to a clip of Delaney facing a chorus of boos after telling attendants at the California Democratic Convention that "'Medicare for All' may sound good, but it's actually not good policy nor is it good politics."

Ocasio-Cortez blasted Delaney's comments as "awful" and "untrue."

"John Delaney, thank you but please sashay away," Ocasio-Cortez added.

Delaney, who's polling near the bottom of the extremely crowded Democratic primary field, is an outlier in opposing "Medicare for All."

Most of his fellow Democratic 2020 hopefuls have voiced support for the concept, although there's some difference in opinion on how to best implement the policy.

While his press secretary criticized Ocasio-Cortez, Delaney focused his ire on the Democrats who drowned him out with boos.

"If you are booing Democrats, do you really expect the country to trust what you have to say if you can't listen respectfully to people in your own party?" Delaney tweeted Monday afternoon. "Let's raise the discourse and not fall down to the level of the president."

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