NBC’s Kristen Welker Puts AOC On the Spot: Do You Think Biden is ‘Supporting Genocide?’

NBC News anchor Kristen Welker pressed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) over President Joe Biden’s response to the Israel-Hamas war and whether the White House is “supporting genocide.”

Progressive lawmakers such as fellow “Squad” member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) have accused the Biden administration of supporting genocide by backing Israel’s military operation in Gaza.

Moreover, progressive activists have staged protests at college campuses calling Israel’s actions “genocide” and demanding the U.S. end aid to the nation that was victim on October 7 to a heinous and bloodthirsty terror attack on civilians launched by Hamas from Gaza.

During a Sunday morning interview on Meet The Press, Welker asked Ocasio-Cortez if she believed the president is “supporting genocide” and the New York lawmaker avoided giving a direct answer.

Rather than saying whether she thinks Biden is “supporting genocide,” AOC instead said people are “appalled” by the “indiscriminate loss of life” and, after Welker pressed for answer, added that Gazans are facing “mass inhumanity” at the hands of Israel.

WELKER: Some of your colleagues and we talked about what’s happened at the protests this week have called the president genocide. Joe. Some of your colleagues have accused the president of supporting genocide, including Rashida Tlaib. Do you agree with that word, genocide, that the president’s been supporting a genocide, or does that go too far?

OCASIO-CORTEZ: I think what we are seeing right now throughout the country is that young people are appalled at the violence and the indiscriminate loss of life. We are not just seeing 25,000 people that have died in Gaza. We are seeing the starvation of of millions of people, the displacement of over 2 million Gazans. We have South Africa that has mounted a court in the ICJ. The ICJ ruled this week that Israel has a grave responsibility to prevent genocide.

WELKER: They are still determining whether it’s a genocide. Do you think that term is responsible given it’s still under investigation?

OCASIO-CORTEZ: I believe that they are. They’re still determining it. But in the interim ruling, the fact that they said there’s a responsibility to prevent it, the fact that this word is even in play, the fact that this word is even in our discourse, I think, demonstrates the mass inhumanity that Gazans are facing.

And so whether you are an individual that believes this is a genocide, which, by the way, in our polling, we are seeing large amounts of Americans concerned specifically with that word. So I don’t think that it is something to completely, toss someone out of our public discourse for using.

But I think what we are seeing here is that the Netanyahu government has lost public support and that we have a responsibility to protect the human rights and the humanity of Gazans and hostages alike in the area.

Watch the clip above via NBC News.