Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been mocked after she mistakenly claimed that Venezuela lies south of the equator.
The Latino 2028 presidential hopeful was criticizing Donald Trump‘s capture of Nicolas Maduro at an event in Berlin on Sunday. She was in Germany after attending the Munich Security Conference.
‘Maduro 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 of the socialist tyrant’s seizure.
Venezuela is located entirely in the northern hemisphere on the northern coast of South America, bordered by Guyana to the east, Brazil to the south, and Colombia to the west.
MAGA social media accounts quickly seized on the congresswoman’s error.
‘Lmao! AOC humiliates herself claiming the US can’t just go capture leaders in places like Venezuela because it’s “below the equator”‘, one X user posted. ‘She must have gotten an education at the Quality Learing Center.’
Another wrote: ‘Venezuela is not below the equator. AOC is below intelligent.’
Ocasio-Cortez was criticizing the President for removing Maduro, accusing the administration of hypocrisy and complicity in Venezuela’s corrupt system for failing to bring about real regime change.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the Berlin Institute of Technology on Sunday
‘Rubio and the Trump administration left Maduro’s regime intact,’ she said. ‘Whatever moralizing they have about it, they’re just as much a culprit in ignoring the election results as anybody else.’
She claimed that the international community’s failure to condemn the US for seizing Maduro had spurred an increasingly aggressive foreign policy.
‘It’s not a coincidence that when there was such a meek reaction to what happened in Venezuela, they immediately turned around and set their sights on Greenland,’ AOC said.
Ocasio-Cortez last week joined lawmakers and policymakers from around the world at the Munich Security Conference, an annual event to discuss pressing global security challenges and foster diplomatic initiatives.
The congresswoman is hoping to burnish her international credentials along with California Governor Gavin Newsom, as the Democratic firebrands are expected to launch presidential campaigns.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his predecessor Hillary Clinton were also in attendance along with more than 450 heads of states, ministers and security experts from 70 countries.
