Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says Beto O'Rourke and Cory Booker's Spanish is 'humorous'

Youngest ever congresswoman compares Democratic presidential candidates to 'high school students' in first debate

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez described the Spanish being spoken on stage by presidential candidates including Cory Brooker and Beto O’Rourke at the first Democratic primary debate as “humorous”.

The youngest ever congresswoman said there was “a lot of Spanglish in the building” as 10 presidential hopefuls sparred on policies and Donald Trump at the debate in Miami on Wednesday night.

Speaking on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert after the debate, Ms Ocasio-Cortez, said:

“I loved it, because, I represent the Bronx and there was a lot of Spanglish in the building.”

“I thought it was humorous sometimes, at times. Especially because, sometimes, of the content of the question.”

The Democratic congresswoman, who is of Puerto Rican heritage, added that she thought the candidates might start saying “I will not give you an answer to your question” in Spanish.

"But it was good,” she added. “I thought it was a good gesture to the fact that we are a diverse country.”

Ms Ocasio-Cortez also compared the candidates to unprepared "high school students". "I think sometimes with the debate stage this big, it can kind of seem like a high school classroom, and so there are some folks that, like, didn’t seem like they read the book, and then they got called on," she said.

Asked who she think will make the next debate, Ms Ocasio-Cortez first praised Elizabeth Warren’s performance.

“I think Elizabeth Warren really distinguished herself, I think Julian Castro really distinguished himself,” she said. “I think Cory Booker did a great job in talking about criminal justice. ”

Looking ahead to the next debate on Thursday, the Democratic congresswoman warned that Joe Biden was not a “safe choice”.

“I think it’s dangerous to assume that any candidate is a quote-unquote ‘safe choice,’” she said. “That you pick one candidate and that’s just going to deliver an election for you. But with respect to vice president Biden, it’s more about an overall electoral strategy.”

I think there’s this idea that we have to sacrifice everything,” she continued. “That we can’t talk about working class issues, that we can’t talk about criminal justice issues, that we can’t talk about immigration because it isolates this very small sliver of Obama-to-Trump voters."

Ms Ocasio-Cortez also highlighted concerns she had over the way climate change is being disused during the debates.

The Bronx congresswoman, who introduced Green New Deal proposal supported by a number of Democratic presidential candidates, said: “‘Is Miami going to exist in 50 years?’ we need to say, ‘What are you going to do about this?’”