AOC blames critics, Trump after Munich hiccup backlash
An emotional Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., attempted to blame critics – and even President Donald Trump's own off-the-cuff agility – for the backlash she received for her response to a question at the recent Munich Security Conference on American defense of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.
"If you think I don't understand foreign policy, because of out of hours of discourse about international affairs, I pause to think about one of the most sensitive geopolitical issues that currently exist on earth, I'm afraid the issue is not my understanding, but perhaps the problem is you've gotten adjusted to a president that never thinks before he speaks," a raspy-voiced Ocasio-Cortez said on a late-night Instagram Live video circulating on social media.
The leftist congresswoman's Munich stumbling on Friday, Feb. 13, started the critical firestorm and has conservatives questioning her fitness for a potential 2028 Democrat presidential primary campaign.
"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," she said with pause when asked about America defending Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion to enforce its One China Policy over the island-nation.
"And I think what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure that we never get to that point, and we want to make sure that we are moving in all of our economic, research and our global positions to avoid any such confrontation and for that question to even arise."
Vice President JD Vance, a potential 2028 presidential campaign opponent in a prospective general election matchup, weighed in multiple times this week to Ocasio-Cortez's remarks.
"I think it's a person who doesn't know what she actually thinks, and I've seen this way too much in Washington with politicians: Where they're given lines and, when you ask them to go outside the lines they were given, they completely fall apart," Vance told Fox News' "The Story With Martha MacCallum" in an in-studio interview earlier this week.
"That was embarrassing," he continued. "If I had given that answer I would say, 'You know what? Maybe you ought to go read a book about China and Taiwan before I go out on the world stage again.’ I hope that Congresswoman Cortez has the same humility. I'm skeptical."