{"id":598387,"date":"2026-02-18T09:52:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T09:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/598387\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T09:52:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T09:52:15","slug":"aoc-claims-her-gaffe-filled-munich-performance-was-well-received-by-europeans-distract-from-the-substance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/598387\/","title":{"rendered":"AOC claims her gaffe-filled Munich performance was \u2018well-received\u2019 by Europeans: \u2018Distract from the substance\u2019\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) <\/a>defended her shaky showing at the Munich Security Conference in an interview with the New York Times Tuesday, arguing that her remarks were met with approval by Europeans and that critics were attempting to \u201cdistract from the substance\u201d of her message.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, the discourse about her visit had missed the more important point about the risks of authoritarianism \u2014 an argument that she said had been well-received by the Europeans during two foreign policy panels, private meetings with German leaders and an address in a packed university auditorium in Berlin,\u201d the New York Times\u2019 Kellen Browning<\/a> wrote after interviewing the far-left \u201cSquad\u201d lawmaker following her appearance at the high-profile forum.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ocasio-Cortez and the New York Times are facing criticism over a piece that appears to try and clarify her remarks at the Munich Security Conference. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Ocasio-Cortez, 36, argued that conservatives seized on \u201cany five-to-10-second thing\u201d from her gaffe-filled remarks in an effort to\u00a0 \u201cdistract from the substance of what I am saying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Browning acknowledged that the progressive firebrand\u2019s \u201cmissteps\u201d at the conference were \u201cstriking,\u201d describing her as a politician who is \u201cusually quick on her feet\u201d and \u201cone of the best communicators in politics.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Conservatives weren\u2019t buying the spin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOne could dissect her words for the next ten years straight, with the best of intentions, and still one would not glean anything coherent or useful from them,\u201d wrote National Review\u2019s Charles C. W. Cooke.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis wasn\u2019t the fault of \u2018conservative social media\u2019 or \u2018rocketing\u2019 or \u2018speculation\u2019; it was the fault of Ocasio-Cortez herself, who went to a security conference, was asked questions about security, and fell flat on her face at the first hurdle,\u201d Cooke added<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ocasio-Cortez denied that she attended the conference to boost her White House chances. REUTERS<\/p>\n

In one brutal moment at the conference, Ocasio-Cortez stumbled over her words for nearly 20 seconds when asked if she would commit to defending Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUm, 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,\u201d she mumbled as she struggled to answer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vice President JD Vance<\/a> called AOC\u2019s response \u201cembarrassing,\u201d during an interview on Fox News\u2019 \u201cThe Story with Martha MacCallum\u201d Tuesday, suggesting that the congresswoman \u201cought to go read a book about China and Taiwan\u201d before stepping on the world stage again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think [Ocasio-Cortez is] a person who doesn\u2019t know what she actually thinks,\u201d Vance told MacCallum. \u201cAnd I have seen this way too much in Washington with politicians, where they are given lines, and when you ask them to go outside the lines they were given, they completely fall apart, because, look, does AOC \u2014 does anybody really believe that AOC has very thoughtful ideas about the global world order or about what the United States should do with our policy in Asia or our policy in Europe?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ocasio-Cortez flubbed several answers during panel discussions at the high-profile conference. ZUMAPRESS.com<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, this is a person who is mouthing the slogans that somebody else gave her.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

At other points during the conference, Ocasio-Cortez faced online ridicule for erroneously claiming that Venezuela is \u201cbelow the equator\u201d<\/a>; struggling to articulate<\/a> the biggest change President Trump made to American foreign policy; and suggesting Secretary of State Marco Rubio was wrong<\/a> when he noted the American cowboy archetype originated from Spain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The New York Times has also come under fire, with critics likening the outlet to a public relations firm, for allowing Ocasio-Cortez to use Browning to rehab her appearance at the conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSome guy named Kellen is running a PR campaign for AOC\u2019s presidential strategy while saying he\u2019s a reporter,\u201d Trump administration official Richard Grenell wrote on X<\/a>, referring to Browning. \u201cPro tip, Kellen: if you use the phrase far-right then AOC is far-left.\u201d<\/p>\n

Journalist Rachel Bade argued<\/a> that Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s complaints in the story seem \u201cpretty whiny & only gave her critics more fodder.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most surprising thing [about] all this is her apparent surprise that she\u2019s being scrutinized \u2026 .\u201d Bade wrote on X.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cClean up on aisle AOC,\u201d veteran reporter Chris Cillizza posted<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHer performance, for which she reportedly prepared for months(!), was a disastrous embarrassment,\u201d Fox News political analyst Guy Benson wrote on X.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Munich trip was widely viewed as an effort by Ocasio-Cortez to build up her foreign-policy portfolio ahead of a possible 2028 White House run \u2013 which she vehemently denied throughout the Times piece.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I were running \u2014 if I had made a decision or anything about being president, or Senate, or anything like that \u2014 frankly, I say this all the time: Am I acting like someone who is trying to run? No! Because I\u2019m there for a very different, specific purpose,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) defended her shaky showing at the Munich Security Conference in an interview with the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":598388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[11338,5229,327,2066,1914,405,403,6985,5226,5225,5228,5227,80,67,586,132,5230,68,5621,1154,2969],"class_list":["post-598387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-alexandria-ocasio-cortez","tag-america","tag-congress","tag-jd-vance","tag-munich","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-times","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-house-of-representatives","tag-us-news","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116091023755736569","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}