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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.
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"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.
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The Original Remark
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. "I actually think the discussions that we had in that time were quite fruitful."
She added that "rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today."
In the same interview, Ocasio-Cortez, who is no longer endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America's National Political Committee, told Karl she does not support many of the positions in DSA's platform. Karl had read her several of them, including abolishing the police and prison system and abolishing the Senate.
Hong, who led in the final polls, lost the Democratic primary two days later to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, 39.8 percent to 39.4 percent. Neither Ocasio-Cortez nor Sanders endorsed her.
Backlash From the Left and the Right
Within days, the remark had drawn fire from the left and the right, and Gray was among the first to pile on.
"LOLZ George Floyd was crazy! I was like, Black lives? Jkjkjk," she wrote.
Former Seattle City Council Member Kshama Sawant, a socialist, told Newsweek in August that Ocasio-Cortez's comments "amount to selling out the movements against racism and police brutality."
The socialist outlet Left Voice argued that Ocasio-Cortez reduced demands that grew out of the 2020 protests after the police killing of George Floyd to the excesses of political discourse. Mother Jones writer Alex Nguyen said she had "dismissed policy debates that helped get her elected."
On the right, the complaint ran the other way. Robby Soave, in an opinion column for The Hill, accused her of retconning her own role and argued she had helped enforce the very politics she was now laughing off. Fox News coverage reminded viewers she had once backed defunding the police.
"I don't know what Woke 1.0 is, but I can tell you how I lead in Maryland," Maryland Governor Wes Moore told CNN's Kaitlan Collins when asked about it. He pointed to lower violent crime and to money spent on police officers and community violence interrupters.
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Gray's Break With Sanders and the Squad
Gray has positioned herself to the left of both Sanders and the progressive lawmakers known as the Squad for years.
After Sanders ended his 2020 campaign, Gray announced she would not endorse Joe Biden, even as Sanders backed him. Sanders distanced himself from her at the time, calling her "my former press secretary – not on the payroll."
She has repeatedly criticized Ocasio-Cortez and her allies for not fighting hard enough in Congress. In late 2020 and early 2021, Gray backed the "Force the Vote" campaign, which pressed progressive House members to withhold support for Nancy Pelosi's reelection as speaker unless she held a floor vote on Medicare for All. She criticized Ocasio-Cortez and other Squad members when they declined to join.
In December 2021, as much of the party was backing away from "defund," she told critics on X: "If you don't like defund, don't use the slogan and shut up about it."
She co-hosted The Hill's online show Rising from 2022 until June 2024, when she was fired after a contentious interview with the sister of an Israeli hostage held by Hamas. She now hosts the podcast Bad Faith, where she frequently criticizes the Democratic Party's leadership and its progressive wing.
Democrats Rethink Their Messaging
The exchange reflects a wider shift in how Democrats talk about issues that Republicans have labeled "woke."
After the 2020 elections, moderate Democrats blamed the "defund the police" slogan for losses in swing districts, and many party leaders moved to emphasize support for law enforcement.
That dynamic carried into the 2026 midterms. An Associated Press report in July found several Democratic candidates in key races distancing themselves from past support for defunding the police as Republicans resurfaced old statements.
On public safety, Democrats "have to define the narrative before others define us with the narrative," Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright told the AP.
Some Democrats have urged candidates to talk about reforming Immigration and Customs Enforcement instead of abolishing it, warning that the slogan could backfire the way "defund" did.
On transgender rights, Ocasio-Cortez has kept pushing. At an event in Portland, Maine, last Thursday for Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson, she was asked by a transgender questioner whether the party had abandoned trans people. According to video of the exchange shared online, she criticized Democrats who backed away from trans rights after the 2024 election and said, "I support the rights of trans women because I'm a girl's girl."
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Gray R. Thomas
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