Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Sunday, mocked Secretary of State Marco Rubio for a passage in his historic speech at the same event a day earlier, which elicited a standing ovation.
“Our expansion into the interior followed the footsteps of French fur traders and explorers whose names, by the way, still adorn the street signs and towns’ names all across the Mississippi Valley,” Rubio noted before the appreciative crowd. “Our horses, our ranches, our rodeos – the entire romance of the cowboy archetype that became synonymous with the American West – these were born in Spain. And our largest and most iconic city was named New Amsterdam before it was named New York.”
At a TU Berlin event with German Bundestag member Isabel Cademartori, AOC taunted, “Rubio’s speech was a pure appeal to Western culture. My favorite part was when he said that American cowboys came from Spain. I believe the Mexicans and descendants of African slave peoples would like to have a word on that.”
AOC tries to take a swing at Sec. Rubios address in Munich:
“You are starting to see the ascent of the Right, even in places like Munich. Marco Rubio’s speech was a pure appeal to Western culture.“ pic.twitter.com/Ksh5HpH5FL
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) February 15, 2026
Of course, what Rubio actually said was “the entire romance of the cowboy archetype that became synonymous with the American West – these were born in Spain.”
Absolutely true.
The word “cowboy” itself is a direct translation of the Spanish word vaquero (from vaca, meaning cow). The tradition began in the medieval hacienda system of Spain and was brought to the Americas by conquistadors like Hernán Cortés and Gregorio de Villalobos in the early 1500s. These Spaniards introduced the first horses and cattle to the Western Hemisphere.
The “look” and equipment of the cowboy is almost entirely Spanish in origin: The lariat comes from la reata; chaps is a shortened form of the Spanish chaparreras, which were leather leggings used to protect riders from brush; the western saddle came from Spanish war and ranching saddles, and even the Stetson hat comes from the Spanish sombrero.
The rodeo dates back to the 17th and 18th centuries, when Spanish hacendados held annual rodeos to gather, count, and brand cattle. Spain introduced the ranching association and the system of branding cattle for ownership.
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