Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slams NBC News for misleading tweet
(CNN) — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused NBC News of publishing a “blatantly misleading tweet” about her role on Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention.
The DNC tapped the Democratic representative from New York to second the nomination of Senator Bernie Sanders for president. Sanders ended his presidential run in April and endorsed candidate Joe Biden, but he was still in line for the formal delegates count that took place Tuesday night.
NBC News published a tweet afterward that seemed to imply that Ocasio-Cortez snubbed Biden.
“In one of the shortest speeches of the DNC, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez did not endorse Joe Biden,” a tweet from the official NBC News Twitter account said.
NBC News later deleted the tweet and added a screenshot of it to an editor’s note tweeted hours later that said, “This tweet should have included more detail on the nominating process.”
Biden won enough delegates in June to claim the nomination on the first ballot of the party’s convention. But back in April, after Sanders dropped out of the race, the Biden campaign and a political group that represented Sanders negotiated a deal to allow the Vermont senator to keep the delegates he had already acquired. That deal meant the senator can fill statewide delegate and standing convention committee slots he would have been eligible for as if he still had an active campaign. During Tuesday’s roll call, Biden surpassed the 2,374 delegates necessary to win the nomination.
Ocasio-Cortez acknowledged in a tweet on Tuesday night that convention rules can be confusing and elaborated on her role there.
“If you were confused, no worries! Convention rules require roll call & nominations for every candidate that passes the delegate threshold,” she tweeted. “I was asked to 2nd the nom for Sen. Sanders for roll call.” She also congratulated Biden for winning the nomination.
NBC News’ misleading tweet rankled Ocasio-Cortez, who retweeted the editor’s note and slammed the network for how it was handled.
“It sparked an enormous amount of hatred and vitriol, & now the misinfo you created is circulating on other networks,” she said. “All to generate hate-clicks from a pre-recorded, routine procedural motion.”
She also chided the network for the timing of the editor’s note, asking how they were going to “fix the incredible amount of damage and misinformation that you are now responsible for?”
“Because a 1:15am tweet to slip under the radar after blowing up a totally false and divisive narrative across networks isn’t it,” she said.
NBC News declined to comment beyond sharing the editor’s notes and clarifications to a blog post on the subject.
Earlier in the day, the DNC issued a press release to media outlets, including CNN, that listed Ocasio-Cortez’s role of issuing a nominating speech for Sanders. She pointed this out in another follow-up tweet.
“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,” she tweeted. “How does a headline that malicious & misleading happen w/ that prior knowledge?”
Ocasio-Cortez did not respond to a request for comment.