Ocasio-Cortez also elaborated on Biden's stance toward climate change, characterizing his preferred methods for combating the threat from rising global temperatures as inadequate.

"I don't think that the vice president has a climate change policy that is sufficient right now," she said, "and I'd like to see us really work on that."

The remarks from the freshman lawmaker, while largely critical of Biden's platform, seemed ultimately aimed at bridging intraparty divides through securing certain ideological concessions from the former vice president.

Biden, who is viewed skeptically by some liberal Democrats, has taken significant steps to consolidate broad party backing in recent days, rolling out successive endorsements from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, President Barack Obama and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

But Ocasio-Cortez has yet to formally throw her weight behind Biden, and tensions between the two politicians — one a pillar of the party's more moderate establishment, the other a superstar of its progressive grassroots — intensified earlier this week.

In an interview with The New York Times published Monday, Ocasio-Cortez said she had not been contacted by the Biden campaign and predicted unification among the party's various factions would not come easily.

But Wednesday, the congresswoman revealed that her staff was now "having conversations with Biden's team" in an effort "to figure out what some of these policy conversations will [be] looking like" as the race for the White House moves forward.

"You know, I would love to see the vice president clarify and deepen his policy stances on certain issues. But aside from that, you know, I think it's incredibly important that we support the Democratic nominee in November," Ocasio-Cortez said, stopping short of explicitly endorsing Biden's candidacy.

The congresswoman also offered advice on the most important decision Biden will make in the coming weeks, casting his choice of vice presidential nominee as another litmus test of the candidate's progressive credentials.

Although Ocasio-Cortez said she was heartened by Biden's pledge to name a female running mate and his openness to a woman of color being on the Democratic ticket, she argued that "what's really important is not only just that woman's identity, in terms of gender and cultural terms, but ... who that woman is and [what] her stance is."

"There is a wide spectrum politically of women of color. There's some that are very conservative, in terms of Democratic context, and there's some that are more progressive," she said.

Just as Obama selected Biden as his running mate in 2008 partly because "Biden was more conservative than Obama at that time," Ocasio-Cortez said, it would be "encouraging if Biden also picked someone who was a little bit more progressive, that he knows may push him."