Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accuses NBC of spreading misinformation after DNC speech

Congresswoman says NBC tweet about her endorsement of Bernie Sanders ‘sparked an enormous amount of hatred’

Tom McCarthy in New York
@TeeMcSee Email
Wed 19 Aug 2020 13.40 BST
Last modified on Wed 19 Aug 2020 16.32 BST

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused NBC News of spreading an “incredible amount of damage and misinformation” overnight on Tuesday after the network construed a routine procedural speech by her as a snub of the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden.

Speaking on the second night of the Democratic national convention (DNC), Ocasio-Cortez was assigned to second the nomination of Senator Bernie Sanders as president. Sanders ended his presidential bid and endorsed Biden last spring, but he was in line for a formal nomination as part of the process of transferring his delegates to Biden.

Ocasio-Cortez had originally endorsed Sanders for president during the primary season before switching her support to Biden.

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Soon after, NBC News sent a tweet that seemed to impute some intrigue to the fact that Ocasio-Cortez had not endorsed Biden for president. Such endorsements are not typically conferred in the convention setting and there was no reason or expectation for Ocasio-Cortez to do so.

But an NBC News account tweeted: “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 of Vermont for president of the United States of America.’”

Hours later, the tweet was deleted and an editor’s note was appended reading, “This tweet should have included more detail on the nominating process.”

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