The congresswoman was widely mocked for a rambling answer on Taiwan
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) called a New York Times reporter from Berlin in an effort to clean up coverage of her Munich Security Conference speech after a series of foreign-policy missteps drew scrutiny, including a stumbling answer on Taiwan.
In the interview, published Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez tried to shift attention away from her meandering answers, arguing that speculation about a presidential run eclipsed the substance of her remarks. “This reporter came up to me and was like, ‘Is Munich the new New Hampshire?'” she told the Times, dismissing the focus on 2028 chatter. She said viral clips of “any five-to-10-second thing” were meant to “distract from the substance of what I am saying.”
The scrutiny followed a rambling answer on Taiwan during the Munich panel. When asked by Bloomberg TV moderator Francine Lacqua whether the United States should send troops to aid Taiwan if China invades, Ocasio-Cortez struggled.
“Um, you know, I think that this is such a, you know, I think that this is, this is of course a very longstanding policy of the United States,” she said. After a pause, she added, “What we are hoping for is that we want to make sure that we never get to that point.” The Times said “she stalled for roughly 20 seconds before offering a response that reflected the United States’ longtime policy of strategic ambiguity.”
The Times also noted that in her remarks, she referred to the “Trans-Pacific Partnership”—only to clarify online that she meant Atlantic—and suggested that Venezuela was below the Equator.
Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t the only Democrat who received criticism for her performance in Munich. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, when asked what victory in Ukraine looks like, tried to avoid answering the question by deferring to President Donald Trump’s ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker. She also said that Ocasio-Cortez and Whitaker, who were on a panel with her, were “much more steeped in foreign policy than a governor is.”
When pressed for an answer, she said “But, I do think that Ukraine’s independence, keeping their land mass and having the support of all the allies, I think, is the goal, from my vantage point.”
She then asked Whitaker to give a better answer, saying, “Go ahead, ambassador, do a better job.”