JOURNALISTIC EOD: Sunday Shows Help Dems Defuse AOC’s ‘Woke One Was Crazy’ Quote

Jorge Bonilla
August 16th, 2026 3:50 PM

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The Elitist Media had a narrative bomb on its hands after Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said last week that “Woke One is crazy.” This week, several Sunday shows enabled Democrats as they tried to defuse that bomb and scurry away unscathed.

The original “Woke One is crazy” quote, of course, was delivered during Jon Karl’s softball interview of AOC on ABC’s This Week. There was no followup. As we noted, this stemmed from Karl’s interest in helping Democrats disavow everything that might be controversial coming from the current crop of DSA Democrats.

After a week of controversy, it’s clear that simple disavowal isn’t enough. Watch as CNN’s Jake Tapper puts the Woke One question before Governor Wes Moore (D-MD) on State of the Union:

 

 

JAKE TAPPER: Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez seems to have acknowledged the- the overreach of the 2020 era of progressivism last week. She said, quote, “Woke One was crazy.” Woke 1.0 was crazy. You were asked about that. You said you didn't know what Woke One was. So I've been trying to figure out how to ask this question. There's no official definition. I think Woke One generally refers to what are now viewed as excesses of the progressive movement. Um, Defund the Police. A far-left view of the world that views the world in terms of only oppressor and oppressee. Language policing. Holiday policing. Cancel culture positions that turned off a lot of middle-of-the-road voters. What is your take on that era, even if that wasn't part of how you ran or thought or governed; and what does the Democratic Party need to do if you- if they hope to win outside of blue states and congressional districts?

WES MOORE: Well, it's funny, it's true. I said I don't know what Woke One is, but frankly, I don't know what Woke Two or Woke Three is either. Uh, you know, just last night I was over at, uh, watching our, our (Delmarva) Shorebirds play, which is our, uh, you know, our Single-A affiliate for the Baltimore Orioles over here in the Eastern Shore. And I was speaking to a woman who was just saying how difficult it is right now when she was saying how gas prices just continue to spike. And, you know, she's a person who's on disability. She says she can't work because of her back. And she's now noticing that just getting anywhere to her doctor's appointments are now becoming oppressively expensive because of gas prices. And, and, and I think when we're talking about those issues, what she didn't come up to me? She didn't come up to me and say, “What's your political ideology?” She didn't say, “What wing of the party do you represent?” She was talking about the fact that gas prices are too high. 

TAPPER: Yeah.

MOORE: And I think that that's the thing we have to better appreciate- is when people are talking about this, you know, Washington oftentimes can play this Political Science 101 game. Um, but that's not where people are. They are just hurting and they're looking for someone who is going to honor their promises because as the woman last night told me at the Shorebirds game, she's like, “the President said he was going to do something about this, and it's only gotten worse under him.” That’s the thing I think people are so frustrated about. And people want to see real results being delivered, like what we’re working to do here in the State of Maryland. 

By asking the Woke One question, Tapper gave Moore the space to disarm the issue in three simple steps: 1. Deny knowledge of what Woke one even is, 2. Deflect with a bridge statement, and 3. Pivot to policy via a third-party story. Moore never bothers to address the substance of Tapper’s question and Tapper never bothers with a follow-up. In this case, Tapper takes the “affordability” segue tossed to him by Moore and moves on.

There is no interest in exploiting the (ongoing) societal damage caused by Woke One because it necessitates the Elitist Media to acknowledge their role in propagating Woke One. Furthermore, acknowledging Woke One (featuring the pandemic as its cornerstone event) requires the acknowledgement of Woke Two, which is underway and undergirded by the barbaric October 7th attack against Israel. It is better instead, both for Elite Media and elected Democrats, to try to dissolve AOC’s “Woke One” into the ether.

We saw the same tactic on display on NBC’s Meet the Press, in this exchange between Kristen Welker and U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA):

 

 

KRISTEN WELKER: Let me ask you about something that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview last week. She, of course another progressive leader- she said “Woke One was crazy,” effectively suggesting some progressive views just went too far in the 2020s. Do you agree with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that Woke One was crazy?

RO KHANNA: Well, I don't know what these labels mean. I'll tell you what I’ve always stood for. I have never been for defunding police. Our district in Silicon Valley is one of the safest districts in the country. We’ve actually had more police in San Jose and Fremont. But I believe in police reform, so people aren't racially profiled. I have never believed in open borders, I have always been for a secure border but I’ve called for abolishing ICE. 

You know, I was just in Austin and I talked to Benny who was a Trump supporter and he said that the Lorenzo Salgado’s killing, a father's killing who was a construction worker, has changed him. He thinks ICE should be abolished. He thinks it's crazy that ICE officers are arresting people for pouring concrete. So my view on all of this is: have common sense. You can be for borders but abolishing ICE, you can be for police, but making sure we don't racially profile.

WELKER: Francesca Hong, obviously, got a lot of attention for a post calling to get rid of Thanksgiving, she tried to explain that. Does that type of rhetoric hurt the overall progressive cause, do you think?

KHANNA: You know, I really feel bad for what happened to Francesca. And I know it's fashionable to distance yourself. I am not. I was proud to endorse her and she’s far more than the caricature that was presented. The main reason she was running was to stop data centers and to have childcare. And she’s a daughter of Asian immigrants. Look- I love Thanksgiving. I grew up in an Indian-American household, we would go to Indian uncles and aunties to have Thanksgiving, we’d watch the Michigan/Ohio State game. 

But to judge her and caricature her based on a tweet was just, I think, unfortunate. And of course, you know, we should love and revere the history of this country but we also have to understand for someone like her, a single mother Asian-American, how hard it is to break into politics. She doesn’t have multimillionaire donors. She doesn’t have Speaker Pelosi or someone clearing her path. 

Khanna ran the same playbook run by Wes Moore: Deny, Deflect, and Pivot with a Story. Welker, unlike Tapper, engaged Khanna with a follow-up question on the recently-defeated Francesca Hong. The question was soft and open-ended. By reducing Hong to the absurd (“abolish Thanksgiving”) while omitting other statements on race and on abolishing the police, Welker allowed Khanna to just spin out.Khanna never addressed the substance of Hong’s calling for the abolition of Thanksgiving, instead offering assurances of his own love of Thanksgiving- a reliability proxy. Welker then moves on.

This stands in stark contrast to how Republicans are routinely asked to address any and every controversy: which is to say, with howling interruptions until a specific answer is provided. When controversy is on the left? The Elite Media turn into Explosive Ordnance Disposal.

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