Did Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez say, "The moon is more important than the sun as the moon gives us light at night when it is dark out. The sun only gives us light during the day when it is already light out"? No, that's not true: Lead Stories could not find any evidence that Ocasio-Cortez ever said this. The same purported quote was previously also falsely attributed to Rep. Lauren Boebert.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on Facebook on April 21, 2024. The caption, with a photo of Ocasio-Cortez, read, "Yes. She really said this." The on-screen text read:
"THE MOON IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE SUN AS THE MOON GIVES US LIGHT AT NIGHT WHEN IT IS DARK OUT."
"THE SUN ONLY GIVES US LIGHT DURING THE DAY WHEN IT IS ALREADY LIGHT OUT."
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Apr 29 13:10:58 2024 UTC)
The post does not give viewers any evidence that this is a real quote. The website linked on the Facebook page that posted this claim does not have any further information on the claim either (archived here).
Lead Stories did a search using keywords on Google News, visible here, which found no credible documents or reporting to corroborate the Facebook claim.
At the time this was written, Snopes had reviewed a similar claim, but instead of Ocasio-Cortez, it claimed Rep. Lauren Boebert said the quote:
More recently, social media not only erroneously attached the quote to Boebert, but they also misattributed it to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She never said the words, nor did any other member of Congress (at least according to available records).
We have contacted Ocasio-Cortez, also known as AOC, and will update this article when a relevant response is received.
Other Lead Stories articles related to Ocasio-Cortez are here.
