Rep Ocasio-Cortez Undercuts Global Stage Debut With Word-Salad Answer To Basic Foreign Policy Question

Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gave a 40-second-long rambling response when asked Friday if the U.S. should send troops to protect Taiwan if China invaded the contested Asian island.

Ocasio-Cortez, a rumored 2028 presidential candidate and a leader of the Democratic Party’s far-leftflank, spoke at the 62nd Annual Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday. There, Bloomberg Television’s Francine Lacqua asked the progressive lawmaker, “Would and should the U.S. actually commit U.S. troops to defend Taiwan if China were to move?”

“You know, I think that — uh — this is such a — you know, I think that this is a — this is, of course a — uh — a very long standing policy of the United States. And, I think what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure that we never get to that point,” Ocasio-Cortez replied.

“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,” the congresswoman continued, concluding her response without giving Lacqua a “yes” or “no” answer.

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Ocasio-Cortez also did not rule out a potential presidential bid in 2028, when The New York Times’s Katrin Bennhold asked her a question framed with “when you run for president.”