Maybe this was a strategic decision on her part, but Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez clearly declined to offer an endorsement of Saikat Chakrabarti when asked by a reporter this week about his primary race in SF.

This clip, from reporter Julian Andreone, has gone a bit viral and has over half a million views on Xitter. And it seems to be sort of awkward for everyone, with AOC offering, essentially, a word salad that amounts to "I'm very busy" or "I'm not sure I should be endorsing anyone anywhere" instead of simply throwing her support behind Chakrabarti, who presumably had a fairly close relationship to her.

The non-answer includes the phrases, "I think for me overall, it’s more about, I’m trying to think about the role that I am trying to play more broadly in these things," and "there is this kind of moment where — and not just with this race but with any race, once you go in then it's like 'what about this?' and 'what about this one?'"

You can hear it all below.

Chakrabarti's ads have certainly tried to leverage his ties to AOC and his role in writing the Green New Deal in his campaign ads, and this is his first ever political campaign as a candidate, so one would think AOC would want to give him a leg up?

One commenter on X points out the fact that AOC may want to reserve her endorsement until after the primary, given that there is another progressive in the race, Connie Chan, who has a bunch of labor union support. And/or maybe she doesn't want to throw endorsements around at all — they could, of course, end up working against some progressives in close races where perhaps she doesn't have many fans.

Another commenter says, "Why would she roll out an endorsement to the press when she can do it strategically down the line to give him a bump when it’s most valuable?"

But, also, Chakrabarti may have worked on her campaign back in 2018 and then served on her staff for a few months in 2019 and maybe she doesn't care to endorse him, full stop!

In any event, embarrassing!

Previously: Saikat Chakrabarti's Big Ad Push Puts Him Five Points Behind Wiener In New Poll