Ocasio-Cortez slams media for false portrayal of her DNC speech

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) slammed mainstream media outlets on Wednesday morning, after several portrayed her speech at the Democratic National Convention as a sign of disunity in the party.

Ocasio-Cortez was chosen to second the nomination of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) during the procedural roll call of delegates Tuesday night. Any candidate who passes a certain delegate threshold is nominated during the roll call, even though they are not going to be the nominee — and Sanders met that threshold.

The freshman Democrat explained this in a tweet after her speech.

“If you were confused, no worries! Convention rules require roll call & 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,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, adding an American flag emoji at the end of her tweet.

But NBC News did not give this context, tweeting that Ocasio-Cortez only gave brief remarks and did not endorse Biden for president — something the news organization was forced to clarify.

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted later that the damage had already been done.

“This is completely unacceptable, disappointing, and appalling,” wrote in the early morning hours on Wednesday, claiming the network had created a false narrative to “generate hate clicks.” “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?”

The congresswoman demanded NBC News further help correct the record, saying its original clarification was not sufficient.

“…How are you going to fix the incredible amount of damage and misinformation that you are now responsible for?” she 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.”

Aside from NBC News, Fox News also ran with the false disunity narrative, with the Trump-allied program “Fox & Friends” calling Ocasio-Cortez’s procedural nomination of Sanders “one of the biggest stories” of the night.

Joe Biden was formally nominated on Tuesday night, officially becoming the Democratic nominee for president following a creative delegate roll call, in which Democrats announced their delegate breakdowns from their home states.

The announcers from each state included prominent Democrats and activists, including Khizr Khan, the Gold Star father Trump attacked after his 2016 Democratic convention speech, and the parents of Matthew Shepard, the gay college student from Wyoming who was tortured and beaten to death for his sexuality. His death led Congress to pass legislation expanding federal hate crime statutes.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.