Ocasio-Cortez Is Engaged to Onetime Debate Foe

Reporters often ask officeholders to confirm or deny preliminary information, but this request wasn't about politics. Asked Thursday if she's engaged, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez didn't hedge. "Yep! It's true," she told Insider. Ocasio-Cortez also tweeted the confirmation, after a Hill photo showed an addition to her ring finger. She said she and longtime partner Riley Roberts, a technology consultant, became engaged last month while in her family's hometown in Puerto Rico. Ocasio-Cortez said there are no wedding details to release yet: "We're taking some space to savor this time before diving into planning."

A biography of the New York Democrat said she met Roberts during debate sessions when they were students at Boston University, per People. "He enjoyed intellectual combat," Eric Baker, a friend of Ocasio-Cortez, is quoted as saying in Take Up Space: The Unprecedented AOC. "I think she enjoyed his pushback." Ocasio-Cortez also told followers that she's fine after being out "for the last week or two" because of a health issue that wasn't COVID-19. "I'm back at it today, but was MIA for a bit to recover," she said. "Just wanted to provide you all some assurance that the silence wasn't political or anything."