President Donald Trump said the way Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez answered questions at the Munich Security Conference ‘was not a good look for the United States.’
The Democrat lawmaker from New York and potential 2028 presidential candidate has been facing criticism for making foreign policy gaffes at the event. In one instance, Ocasio-Cortez appeared to stall for nearly 20 seconds when asked if the U.S. should send troops to defend Taiwan from a possible invasion by China, and in another, claimed Venezuela is below the equator.
‘By the way, I watched AOC answering questions in Munich. This was not a good look for the United States. I watched Gavin Newscum answering questions in Munich, and this was a bad look for our country,’ Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One on Monday night.
‘This was a bad – these two people are incompetent, and at least Hillary is competent. She’s just Trump deranged. She was so deranged and she is an angry woman. But I watched the other two speaking and answering basic questions. Look, Gavin has destroyed California, and AOC I never really got her, I never heard her speak very much and they started answering questions. She had no idea what was happening,’ Trump continued, referencing Newsom’s and Clinton’s attendance at the Munich Security Conference.
‘She had no idea how to answer, you know, very important questions concerning the world. But she can’t answer questions concerning New York City either, because New York City [has] got some problems,’ Trump also said about Ocasio-Cortez.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Ocasio-Cortez’s and Newsom’s offices for reaction.
Ocasio-Cortez was asked on Friday, ‘Would and should the U.S. actually commit U.S. troops to defend Taiwan if China were to move?’
The four-term lawmaker appeared to stall for nearly 20 seconds before offering that the U.S. should try to avoid reaching a clash with China over Taiwan.
‘This is, of course, a, 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, 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,’ Ocasio-Cortez said.
Ocasio-Cortez also claimed that Venezuela was ‘below the equator’ while criticizing the Trump administration for arresting the nation’s dictator Nicolás Maduro.
‘It is not a remark on who Maduro was as a leader. He canceled elections. He was an anti-democratic leader. That doesn’t mean that we can kidnap a head of state and engage in acts of war just because the nation is below the equator,’ Ocasio-Cortez said.
In a post on Truth Social Monday night, Trump said, ‘AOC and Newscum were an embarrassment to our Nation.’
Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser, Lindsay Kornick and Peter Pinedo contributed to this report.