Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Chides NBC News Over Misleading Tweet About Convention Speech

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who gave brief remarks at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, chided NBC News for a tweet that she called “malicious and misleading.”

The furor was triggered by an NBC News tweet that went out after she gave a one-minute nomination speech for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

The tweet read, “In one of the shortest speeches of the DNC, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez did not endorse Joe Biden: “I hereby second the nomination of Sen. Bernard Sanders os Vermont for president of the United States of America.”

She did not mention Biden in the speech, but she has endorsed him.

After her remarks, she explained the process on Twitter. Rather than a snub of Biden, her speech for Sanders was a part of convention procedure.

“If you were confused, no worries! Convention rules require roll call & nominations for every candidate that passes the delegate threshold,” she wrote. “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.”

NBC later deleted the tweet and issued a clarification. “This tweet should have included more detail on the nominating process. We have deleted the tweet to prevent its further spread, but it can be seen here for the record,” the network said. “Ocasio-Cortez was asked by the DNC to second Sanders’ nomination. The nomination is a procedural requirement of the convention. Ocasio-Cortez has previously endorsed Biden, & her speech was similar in length to other nominating speeches.”

But Ocasio-Cortez found the explanation unacceptable.

“You waited several hours to correct your obvious and blatantly misleading tweet,” she wrote on Twitter. “It sparked an enormous amount of hatred and vitriol, & now the misinfo you created is circulating on other networks. All to generate hate-clicks from a pre-recorded, routine procedural motion.

She added, “This is completely unacceptable, disappointing, and appalling. The DNC shared the procedural purpose of my remarks to media WELL in advance. @NBC knew what was going to happen & that it was routine. How does a headline that malicious & misleading happen w/ that prior knowledge?” While the network’s changes were an acknowledgement that the tweet was misleading, Ocasio-Cortez did not explain or provide any additional elaboration as to why she thought it was malicious.

NBC News did not comment beyond the clarification, and is also updated the original article the tweet linked to, and added a separate blog post for more context.