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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., received criticism even from moderate and liberal commentators for her Munich Security Conference gaffes over the weekend.
While attending the conference on Friday, Ocasio-Cortez made several statements that went viral because of showing the House “Squad” member struggling to answer foreign policy questions or leveling controversial accusations against other nations.
One example was Ocasio-Cortez claiming that Venezuela was “below the equator” while criticizing the Trump administration for arresting the nation’s dictator Nicolás Maduro.
“It is not a remark on who Maduro was as a leader. He canceled elections. He was an anti-democratic leader. That doesn’t mean that we can kidnap a head of state and engage in acts of war just because the nation is below the equator,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., took part in the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (Sven Hoppe /dpa via AP)
AOC’s Venezuela comments were the latest in what more liberal critics claimed was an embarrassing outing for a potential 2028 presidential candidate.
“Venezuela is above the equator. Depending on your TL you got very different takes on AOC’s Germany talks but she had a number of clangers that I expect to see for three years in meme video comps,” Semafor writer David Weigel wrote on X.
“Whoever convinced AOC that she had successfully completed her tutoring and was now ready to give book reports about foreign policy in public really should look for another line of work. Unless the goal was to sabotage her. In which case: kudos for a job well done,” independent journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote.
Political analyst Mark Halperin spoke about Ocasio-Cortez’s comments on the 2Way podcast Monday, calling them “one of the bigger mistakes” she’s ever made.
“I think giving AOC a slot may go down in history as one of the bigger mistakes she’s ever made if she wants to be president,” Halperin said.
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He added, “It takes a major screwup for the New York Times to put in their story about AOC that she had, I think they said it was a ‘stumble’ or something. It had to be a really bad stumble.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was mocked for stumbling on a question over whether the U.S. should commit to sending troops to defend Taiwan. (Marijan Murat/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Halperin was referring to an article from The New York Times on Friday which claimed that Ocasio-Cortez brought a “working-class vision” to the conference “with some stumbles.” Although the article largely complimented Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks, it added that she “struggled at times to formulate succinct answers,” particularly when it came to whether the U.S. should commit to defending Taiwan.
“Um, you know, I think that this is such a, you know, I think that this is a um — this is, of course, a, um, very long-standing, um, policy of the United States,” Ocasio-Cortez said before finally responding to the question.
The Washington Post editorial board was more critical of Ocasio-Cortez on Monday, writing that she “appeared out of depth as she tried to graft her class-warfare politics onto foreign policy.”
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“The message to her European audience was, in short: The West is very bad, but the U.S. and Europe should remain allies anyway. She said that the U.S. had enabled genocide in Gaza and that President Donald Trump was treating Latin America as America’s sandbox. She used conspiratorial language about corporations and oligarchs controlling governments and dictating global affairs to the detriment of the poor people around the world. It led her to sound more like a university faculty member than someone conducting foreign policy,” the editorial board wrote.
Several comments from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., also went viral over the weekend. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Former CNN journalist Chris Cillizza was among the earlier critics who called Ocasio-Cortez’s response “not great” on X Friday and doubled down when a comment pointed out that Ocasio-Cortez was not a secretary of defense or secretary of state.
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“Agree. But she DOES want to run for president. And she sounds like me when I didn’t do the reading for class and the professor calls on me,” Cillizza wrote on X.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Ocasio-Cortez’s office for comment.
Lindsay Kornick is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to lindsay.kornick@fox.com and on Twitter: @lmkornick.
