Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)’s international debut at the Munich Security Conference was supposed to showcase her readiness for a possible 2028 bid for Senate or the White House. Instead, it exposed foreign policy missteps that sparked mockery and renewed questions about whether the progressive firebrand is ready for prime time.
Ocasio-Cortez claimed at the conference that Venezuela was located “below the equator,” while attacking President Donald Trump over last month’s capture of former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. She also struggled to give a clear answer when asked whether the U.S. would defend Taiwan if it were attacked by communist China.
“I think that this is such a, you know, I think that this is a, this is, of course, a very long-standing policy of the United States,” Ocasio-Cortez began. “And I think what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure that we never get to that point. 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.”
AOC ‘WORKING-CLASS PERSPECTIVE’ ON FOREIGN POLICY MIRRORS GLOBAL ELITE AT MUNICH SECURITY CONFERENCE
The missteps went viral and were quickly seized on by Republicans.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) contrasted her remarks with Secretary of State Marco Rubio‘s address in Munich, where he claimed that the U.S. and Europe “belong together.” Rubio, like Ocasio-Cortez, is widely seen as a possible 2028 presidential candidate.
“If you have a split screen up with AOC on one side and Marco Rubio on the other side, you can see one, a departure from American values, and two, the reinforcement of American values by Marco Rubio,” Scott told the Washington Examiner podcast In Focus with Peter Laffin. “He was quite (a) statesman. She was confused. He was clear. She was disillusioned. He was direct.”
Trump claimed the progressive Democrat “had no idea what was happening” and that her responses weren’t a good look for the U.S.
“She had no idea how to answer, you know, very important questions, concerning the world,” Trump said while talking with reporters on Air Force One.
Ocasio-Cortez attempted to defend her presence in Munich during a phone interview with the New York Times, where she expressed frustration over speculation about the 2028 race and said the virality of her gaffes was a distraction “from the substance of what I am saying.”
She argued that the trip overseas was “not because I’m running for president, not because I’ve made some kind of decision about a horse race or a candidacy, but because we need to sound the alarm bells that a lot of those folks in nicely pressed suits in that room will not be there much longer if we do not do something about the runaway inequality that is fueling far-right populist movements.”
Ocasio-Cortez, who was first elected to Congress in 2018, has mostly focused on domestic issues as a populist leader in the vein of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). She was one of the original authors of the Green New Deal and has helped push the Democratic Party in a more progressive direction.
The star power has given rise to rumors that Ocasio-Cortez is a likely candidate for higher office in 2028, either an insurgent campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination or a primary challenge to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
In her remarks, Ocasio-Cortez excoriated Trump over his desire to acquire Greenland as a U.S. territory, slashing U.S. aid overseas, and rattling European allies with his America First priorities. She also linked the need for a “working-class” ethos to “stave off the scourges of authoritarianism.”
“To me, this pivot reads like the beginning of the 2028 audition process. Most likely for Senate, but she’s keeping the door open for the White House, too,” Democratic strategist and former Obama State Department alumnus Tom Cochran, told the Washington Examiner.
The Democratic Party is in the midst of a rebuild and rebrand after voters not only backed Trump’s return to the White House in 2024, but also gave Republicans a popular vote victory and control of both chambers of Congress. The rebuild has been beset by infighting over U.S. support for Israel, pressuring elderly incumbents to step down, and considering what direction is the best path to winning power.
In Munich, Ocasio-Cortez showed she was not shying from those fights.
“I think that personally, that the idea of completely unconditional aid, no matter what one does, does not make sense. I think it enabled a genocide in Gaza,” she said.
Such comments were overshadowed by her gaffes on Taiwan and Venezuela.
Democrats are unconcerned, however, claiming that 2028 is at least two years away, and voters were concerned about domestic problems such as the economy.
Achyuth Sarath, a former 2024 Democratic delegate, dismissed the attacks as a “nothing burger” in an interview with the Washington Examiner. He also pointed out that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) also spoke in Munich but Ocasio-Cortez got all the attention.
“Barely anyone is talking about him going there or what he talked about, but everyone’s talking about the fact that AOC went there, I think says a lot about her viability as a candidate, or who people are interested in,” he said.
Matt Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University, noted that Trump, during his first 2016 presidential campaign, had no foreign policy and was a political novice prone to gaffes who went on to not just defeat Republicans such as foreign policy hawk Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for the GOP nomination but also defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the presidency.
“It’s really unclear how much, if any, damage is done to her 2028 political prospects,” Dallek said about Ocasio-Cortez. “Her stumbles, I think, reflect both her political and policy strengths, but also her weaknesses because she doesn’t have much, if any, foreign policy experience.”
“And I think it’s also a reminder of how difficult it is to run for president if, in fact, she’s going to run from the House of Representatives,” he said. “It’s very difficult. Most members in the House do not have very much experience in foreign policy.”
AOC DODGES ON 2028 WHITE HOUSE RUN AT MUNICH SECURITY CONFERENCE
The missteps on foreign policy will likely be used against the congresswoman in any future run for higher office. Corbin Trent, a former aide to Ocasio-Cortez, dismissed the attacks against her foreign policy blunders as “par for the course.”
“Look at this president we got right now, you talk about blunders,” he said. “Word salads are just, you know, flying out of his mouth. You start reading transcripts of what the man says in speeches, and it’s incoherent, it’s babble. So she didn’t come anywhere approaching that. And we know that that allows you to win as president.”
Naomi Lim contributed to this report.