Trump Compared AOC to Eva Perón, Report on Upcoming Book Says
Donald Trump has compared Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to former Argentine first lady Eva Perón.
(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump has compared Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to former Argentine first lady Eva Perón, according to a report on a new book about the president’s rise in a fractured Republican Party.
The forthcoming book contains a claim by Trump that he first noticed the liberal firebrand from the Bronx while watching TV, and that she was “ranting and raving like a lunatic on a street corner,” according to a report by the Guardian newspaper about “American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump.”
Ocasio-Cortez at the time was pursuing a long-shot -- and little noted -- primary bid to unseat Representative Joe Crowley, a top member of House Democratic leadership, the Guardian said. Since toppling Crowley, Ocasio-Cortez, 29, has become the most visible of the freshman Democrats trying to pull the party leftward, as well as a vocal Trump opponent.
‘It’ Factor
Perón, the wife of Argentine President Juan Perón, was a former actress known for her popular appeal and power in her husband’s administration. Often called “Evita,” she died at age 33 in 1952 and became the subject of the 1979 Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice musical of the same name. Patti LuPone won a Tony Award for her portrayal in the original Broadway production; Madonna played Perón in the 1996 film version.
In the book, Trump praises Ocasio-Cortez’s “talent” and “potential” but slams her knowledge, or lack of it, the Guardian said. Despite the enmity between the two, Trump’s comparison may not entirely be an insult: he wrote in a 2004 book that “Evita” was his favorite Broadway show and that he’d seen it six times, according to ABC News.
“She’s got a good sense, an ‘it’ factor, which is pretty good, but she knows nothing,” the Guardian report said, quoting Trump from the book. “American Carnage” was authored by Politico reporter Tim Alberta and is scheduled for release on July 16 by HarperCollins Publishers.
Like Trump, Ocasio-Cortez has been called a master of new media -- especially Twitter, where she has almost 4.7 million followers.
Separately, the independent journalist known as Yashar Ali posted on Twitter an apparent screen shot from the book in which Trump tells aides to contact Crowley before the Democratic primary election to warn him of Ocasio-Cortez’s appeal.
On Sunday afternoon, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted two quotes credited to Perón.
"I know that, like every woman of the people, I have more strength than I appear to have," the congresswoman wrote in one.
A spokeswoman for Ocasio-Cortez’s office didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Brody in Washington at btenerellabr@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny, Mark Niquette
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