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NEW YORK (AP) – NBC News deleted a tweet about rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s short speech at the Democratic National Convention that she complained about was misleading and horrific.
The network’s offensive tweet said that “in one of the DNC’s shortest speeches, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez did not endorse Joe Biden.” The tweet quoted the New York congresswoman seconding the nomination of Bernie Sanders, who gathered more than 1,000 delegates in his ultimately unsuccessful primary bid.
Ocasio-Cortez complained via Twitter that the NBC report did not recognize the purpose of her 90-second comment: a “routine procedural motion” to greet the run-up to Sanders’ campaign.
While removing the tweet and sending a replacement, NBC said its original report “would have included more detail about the nomination process.”
Editor’s note and explanation (1/2):
This tweet should have included more detail about the nomination process.
We deleted the tweet to prevent further spread, but it can be seen here for the record. pic.twitter.com/txXo4CCMOt
– NBC News (@NBCNews) August 19, 2020
However, Ocasio-Cortez did not comply with this correction.
“You waited several hours to correct your just and blatantly misleading tweet,” she wrote in one tweet. “It caused an enormous amount of hatred and vitriol, and now the mischief you have created is circulating on other networks.”
In another tweet, she asked, ‘How are you going to repair the incredible amount of damage and misinformation for which you are now responsible? “Because a 1:15 hour tweet slips under the radar after blowing up a false and divisive story about networks, it is not.”
However, there was nothing to prevent the congresswoman from mentioning Biden’s name in her brief address. She criticized Biden after Sanders stopped her campaign and said defeating President Donald Trump was a ‘life and death problem’ for her constituencies. She sent a tweet on Wednesday congratulating Biden on winning the Democratic nomination.
Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for Ocasio-Cortez, said people who criticized the congresswoman for ignoring Biden in her speech sought to make distribution if there was none. She said both representatives of Biden and Sanders reviewed her speech before recording it.
“This is what the DNC asked us to do,” Hitt said.
