Briahna Joy Gray, who served as national press secretary for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign, accused New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of lying about what she meant by "Woke 1 was crazy" during an August television interview. The dispute reopened a debate that has followed Ocasio-Cortez since the summer, as Democrats try to distance themselves from slogans that Republicans have used against them while progressives argue the party is retreating from the movements that energized its base. The flare-up started when comments in which Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, explained the remark resurfaced on social media.
"What I was referring to, even in the context of that interview, was how we make the progressive movement one that isn't rooted in judgment, castigation, or being closed off," she said. "To me, it's about pivoting: fighting for the same things and not changing our principles, but doing so in a way that welcomes people, including those who perhaps weren't always exposed to or educated about some of these issues and fights." Gray, posting on X, said, "AOC is lying. The 'woke 1' statement was made in response to a question about 'abolish prisons' and 'abolish the police,'" she wrote, before posting the question ABC News host Jonathan Karl asked during the interview: "What do you make of [Francesca Hong's] controversial statements I'm sure you've seen.
I mean she's, you know, the Thanksgiving dust up -- she says she doesn't, you know, still believe that. But uh, abolish prisons, abolish police -- which is also positions that have been take up by a lot of progressive candidates who've won. How do you get around that?" Newsweek reached out to Ocasio-Cortez's office for comment.
Ocasio-Cortez made the comment on ABC's This Week on August 9, days after Abdul El-Sayed, whom she endorsed, won Michigan's Democratic Senate primary over Representative Haley Stevens. Karl asked her about Hong, a Democratic Socialist state representative running for governor of Wisconsin, who walked back past social media posts, including a 2021 post calling to cancel Thanksgiving and earlier support for abolishing prisons and police. "I have a local city councilman that has this saying, 'Woke 1 was crazy,'" Ocasio-Cortez said, laughing.
"And I think that what's important is that we have to assess what a candidate is saying now." She was quoting New York City Council Member Chi Ossé, who wrote "Woke 1 was crazyyyy" in May when a critic resurfaced a 2021 post in which he said a white man should not be the next speaker of the City Council. After the interview aired, Ossé shared the clip and wrote, "Woke 1 WAS crazyyyy, Madame President." Karl pressed her further. "Did the movement go too far, with some of those positions?
You briefly supported the idea of defunding the police," he asked. She answered by pointing back to the pandemic, when lockdowns had stretched what seemed politically possible. "Especially during COVID, there was a huge opening of the Overton window ... the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place," she said.
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