Joe Lieberman Image by Getty Images

Joe Lieberman, former Democratic Senator from Connecticut, made it clear he is not a fan of New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“With all respect, I certainly hope she’s not the future and I don’t believe she is,” Lieberman said Thursday on Fox Business Network.

Lieberman, 76, explained that Ocasio-Cortez, 29, is too “different” and “controversial” for the party, which he says has shifted to the center of the political spectrum.

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“If you look at the majority of new Democrats in the house, they tend to be, I say, center-left, if they are not left-left,” he said. “And that is because they had to be center-left to win some of those competitive swing districts that they took from Republicans. So that’s the hope.”

Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described Democratic socialist, didn’t flinch at the comment. Instead she shot back, tweeting, “New party, who dis?”

In November, after she unseated incumbent Democrat Joe Crowley in a upset victory, the freshman congresswoman tweeted that Lieberman was one of the two former vice presidential candidates to attack her.

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at fisher@forward.com, or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

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