Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Tuesday night refuted accusations that she had gone rogue by nominating Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) during her 2020 Democratic National Convention speech that night, pointing out that the party had asked her to do so in accordance to standard convention rules.
“If you were confused, no worries!” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted after her brief pre-recorded speech aired. “Convention rules require roll call and nominations for every candidate that passes the delegate threshold. I was asked to 2nd the nom for Sen. Sanders for roll call.”
“I extend my deepest congratulations to @JoeBiden–let’s go win in November,” she added.
In a separate tweet, the New York congresswoman thanked DNC officials for choosing her to second Sanders’ nomination.
“Thank you @DemConvention for having me deliver Sen. Sanders’ roll call nomination speech,” she wrote. “It’s been an absolute honor.”
Ocasio-Cortez then slammed NBC News early Wednesday morning over its “malicious and misleading” Twitter headline on her speech that stated, without context, that she “did not endorse Joe Biden.” NBC News deleted the tweet a couple of hours later in response to critics who pointed out that its framing gave the false impression that the progressive lawmaker, who had backed Sanders during the Democratic primaries, had deliberately snubbed Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
“You waited several hours to correct your obvious and blatantly misleading tweet,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in her retweet of NBC News’ note clarifying its original headline. “It sparked an enormous amount of hatred and vitriol, and now the misinfo you created is circulating on other networks.”
She pressed the news outlet on the issue again about ten minutes later.
“So @NBCNews how are you going to fix the incredible amount of damage and misinformation that you are now responsible for?” the Democrat tweeted. “Because a 1:15am tweet to slip under the radar after blowing up a totally false and divisive narrative across networks isn’t it.”
During her 90-second speech, Ocasio-Cortez laid out the driving principles of the Democratic party’s progressive wing that Sanders represented during his campaign.
“In a time when millions of people in the United States are looking for deep systemic solutions to our crises of mass evictions, unemployment, and lack of health care, and espíritu del pueblo and out of a love for all people, I hereby second the nomination of Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont for president of the United States of America,” she said at the end of her remarks.
