Ultra-left Brooklyn Councilman Chi Ossé would reportedly challenge NY Sen. Chuck Schumer in 2028 while “Squad” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez runs for the White House — if the Democratic Socialists of America get their way.
Ossé visited Buffalo and Kingston this week, and the silver-spoon socialist sounded very much like a candidate seeking higher office.
“I think the era of wait-your-turn politics is over,” he told a packed crowd at Kingston’s Unicorn Bar Tuesday at a “Take Our Power Back” Mid-Hudson Valley DSA event.
“The time for us, the socialists, is right now,” he said, sitting on a bar stool on stage at the queer performance venue, Hell Gate reported.
In May he notoriously said, “Woke 1 was crazyyyy.” It was an attempt to defend his 2021 remarks that “a cis white man should not be the next speaker of the council.”
Ocasio-Cortez repeated Ossé’s “woke 1 was crazy” comment last month before announcing on national television she was freezing her eggs. “During lockdown, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today,” she said in an attempt to blame it all on pandemic stir-craze.
The remarks were seen by many as a signal that the two far-left pols are trying to water down their radical images in an effort to attract more moderate Dems.
In Kingston, Ossé, 28, pushed for government-run electricity, and worked the room and posed for photos during a private happy hour before the talk, Hell Gate reported.
The outlet reported that several DSA sources confirmed ongoing talks within the party to run Ossé for Schumer’s seat.
Hudson Valley State Assemblywoman Sarahana Shrestha, a member of the Mid-Hudson chapter of the DSA who also spoke at the Tuesday event, personally called out Senate Minority Leader Schumer — whose term is up in 2028 and is facing retirement rumors — for his ties to the tech industry.
“We really need socialists leading the fight against big tech because I don’t trust moderate Democrats to do it,” Shrestha said to a DSA merch-clad crowd.
Speaking later to Hell Gate about AOC’s potential presidential bid, she said, “I think it’s not even a rumor.”
“DSA is openly trying to convince AOC that she should run,” added Shrestha, but the “Bronx girl,” who reportedly broke up with fiancé Riley Roberts over her ambitions, is weighing whether she’s willing to have her personal life take a hit.
“In some ways, she would be ruining her personal life forever,” added Shrestha. “I think it’s not a decision to be taken lightly.”
Ossé, who didn’t answer The Post’s calls, didn’t deny a possible Senate run when asked by the DSA-friendly outlet, instead claiming socialists needed to be elected to fight fascism.
“I don’t believe that our current Democratic leadership is standing up to the plate,” he said. “A lot of people are calling for change.”
The second-term city councilman dropped a congressional bid last year after challenging House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a primary. The move caused a “civil war” within the DSA after Mayor Zohran Mamdani personally urged the party to kill Ossé’s bid, threatening the race could derail his first-year agenda. The two have reportedly mended their relationship since.
Ossé, who was behind the controversial broker’s fee ban in NYC that saw rents jump 15% overnight, has called Israel a “terror state,” said a landscaping firm with an Italian name was a “red flag,” and bragged about knocking over a “Jesus worshipper” in the subway.
Winning a statewide race would be a challenge for a far-left candidate like Ossé, political observers believe.
“He’s a stone-cold antisemite, he won’t do well with the Jews — they’ll raise money against him. So will other people in business who don’t think he’s very good. He’s a bigot,” veteran Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf, who helped run several winning statewide races, told The Post.
“Statewide races are tough, they’re entirely different than working in the city,” he added.
“He’s testing it out. . . . It’s like a trial balloon — you throw it up in the air and if nobody shoots it down, you know you have some possibilities. That’s what he’s doing.”
Despite clamoring to “eat the rich,” Ossé attended the posh private Friends Seminary school in the East Village and regularly hobnobs with celebrities like rapper Ice Spice at the Met Gala and “Girls” actress Jemima Kirke. His father is an entertainment lawyer who represented hip hop mogul Jay-Z and his grandfather is a Grammy Award–winning record producer.
Ocasio-Cortez, Schumer, and the DSA did not return The Post’s requests for comment.
