Book: Trump Compares AOC to Evita and She Approves

NEW YORK, NY - MAY 31: U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) stands with supporters of
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is not a fan of President Donald Trump, but she apparently agreed with his comparing her to Eva Peron, popularly known as Evita, the first lady of Argentina who championed the poor in the 1940s.

Trump’s comparison is revealed in Tim Alberta’s book, “American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War,” centered on the Republican Party from the presidential nomination of the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to the mid-point of Trump’s first term as president.

The book is due out on July 16, but the Guardian obtained a copy and published excerpts, including Trump’s remarks about Ocasio-Cortez:

Donald Trump has compared Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Eva Perón, saying that though he first saw the New York congresswoman “ranting and raving like a lunatic on a street corner” and thinks “she knows nothing,” she has “a certain talent.”

Alberta, who works for Politico, writes that Trump “became enamored” and “starstruck” by Ocasio-Cortez.

“I called her Eva Perón,” Trump said. “I said, ‘That’s Eva Perón. That’s Evita.”

Perón was married to Argentinian president Juan Perón and gained fame trying to help the working class and women until her death from cancer in 1952 at age 33.

Although Trump has not publicly made the comparison between Evita and Ocasio-Cortez, he wrote in his 2004 book, “Trump: Think Like a Billionaire: Everything You Need to Know About Success, Real Estate, and Life,” that the Broadway show Evita was his favorite and that he had seen it six times.

The Guardian reported that Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described Democratic Socialist, responded to the story on Twitter:

Attributing quotes to “Evita Perón”, she wrote: “I know that, like every woman of the people, I have more strength than I appear to have.”

She added: “I had watched for many years and seen how a few rich families held much of Argentina’s wealth and power in their hands. So the government brought in an eight-hour working day, sickness pay and fair wages to give poor workers a fair go.”

The Guardian noted that some responded on Twitter that Argentina has a dark history of harboring Nazi war criminals after World War II, including Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele.

Trump also apparently walked back his earlier praise of Ocasio-Cortez, telling Alberta: “She’s got talent. Now, that’s the good news. The bad news: she doesn’t know anything. She’s got a good sense, an ‘it’ factor, which is pretty good, but she knows nothing. But with time, she has real potential.”

Follow Penny Starr on Twitter.

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