In June 2020, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told America that defunding the police “means defunding the police” – and she meant every word.
Now, she’s trying to rewrite history.
She laughed when she said it – and what she called it tells you exactly how Democrats plan to win in November.
AOC Blamed the COVID Lockdown for Her Defund the Police Record on ABC This Week
On ABC’s This Week, host Jon Karl asked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong – a socialist Democrat who previously posted that “police exist to uphold white supremacy” and that prisons should be abolished, and who once called for canceling Thanksgiving.
AOC waved it off.
“I have a local city councilman that has this saying, ‘Woke 1 was crazy,'” she said, laughing.
Karl pressed further, reminding her that she herself had supported defunding the police.
Ocasio-Cortez didn’t deny it.
She blamed the pandemic.
“I think that during lockdown, of course, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today,” she told Karl.
The pandemic didn’t chant “defund the police” in June 2020.
Ocasio-Cortez and her allies did.
What Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Said About Defunding the Police in 2020
In June 2020, Ocasio-Cortez posted on Instagram that an America with defunded police “looks like a suburb.”
When New York City proposed cutting $1 billion from the NYPD, she didn’t hedge.
“Defunding police means defunding police,” she said at the time. “It does not mean budget tricks or funny math.”
That quote didn’t come from lockdown fever.
It came from a congresswoman who knew exactly what she was saying and said it anyway, for months on end, while the Squad cheered and cities watched crime spiral.
Now she calls those “fruitful” conversations.
Francesca Hong and Zohran Mamdani Are Running the Same Playbook
Ocasio-Cortez isn’t alone in the sudden memory loss.
Francesca Hong, the socialist currently leading Wisconsin’s Democrat gubernatorial primary, spent the last week reversing every position that made headlines.
She once posted that she “supported defunding the police as a first step towards abolishing the police.”
Last week she told a radio station that she “did not believe that police funding should go away.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani ran the same play last year.
In 2020, he called the NYPD “wicked and corrupt” and tweeted “Defund it. Dismantle it.”
After winning the Democrat primary, he kept his predecessor’s police commissioner on the job – a move that stunned his allies on the Left.
The Fraternal Order of Police’s national vice president, Joe Gamaldi, cut through the spin.
“Anyone who still supports defunding the police is completely insane,” Gamaldi said. “Especially after seeing the horrific consequences on our urban communities. It brought on rampant crime and disorder, historic murder rates in over a dozen cities and destroyed the quality of life for millions.”
AOC and the DSA Are Already Rehearsing for a 2028 Presidential Run
Calling it “Woke 1” concedes that an entire era of left-wing policy – abolish the police, no one is illegal on stolen land, homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy – was so toxic that Democrats now need a product name change to survive November.
The national Democratic Socialists of America program still lists abolishing the police as an official position.
When Karl pointed that out, Ocasio-Cortez said she belongs to the New York chapter, not the national organization, and doesn’t agree with all its positions.
The same organization that endorsed her career and funded her rise now requires a geographic disclaimer.
Prediction markets currently have socialist Democrat Congressional candidates Darializa Chevalier and Melat Kiros winning their general elections at 98% and 97% respectively.
What America watched on ABC was a dry run.
Ocasio-Cortez is widely expected to run for president in 2028 – and every radical position she held from 2019 through 2021 will be waiting for her on the debate stage.
She is testing whether “Woke 1 was crazy” can serve as a blanket disclaimer for six years of hard-left positions – defunding the police, opposing ICE enforcement, backing government takeover of housing – without requiring a single specific apology or reversal.
Kamala Harris tried the same thing in 2024 – running from the open border, the soft-on-crime posturing, the hard-left record she built in the Senate – and deflected her way straight into a historic defeat.
A laugh on a television show doesn’t erase six years of policy on the record.
Sources:
- Virginia Kruta, “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shrugs off past ‘defund the police’ comments, joking ‘Woke 1 was crazy,'” Fox News, August 10, 2026.
- “Top Wisconsin Democratic socialist candidate confronted on past ‘defund police’ rhetoric,” Fox News, August 2026.
- “AOC, ‘Squad’ members promote ‘Defund the Police’ but spend thousands on private security,” Fox News, April 21, 2021.
- “AOC defends ‘defund the police’ mantra after Dem losses,” New York Post, November 13, 2020.
- “AOC-backed socialist mayoral candidate backtracks after calling to ‘dismantle’ police in 2020,” Fox News, July 9, 2025.
