Don't cry for me Orangina

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”.

“That’s Evita,” he said.

The president’s remarks are contained in American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War, a book by Politico writer Tim Alberta that will be published on 16 July. The Guardian obtained a copy. 

Perón, known popularly as Evita, was an actor married to Argentinian president Juan Perón who rose to fame as a champion of working-class and female voters before dying of cancer in 1952, aged 33. Revered by many in her own country, she has been played in the West End and on Broadway by Elaine Paige and Patti LuPone and on film by Madonna.

Ocasio-Cortez has been compared to Perón before, on both sides of the partisan divide, including by the Republican commentator Charlie Sykes in remarks to the Guardian.

Trump has not previously made the comparison. But he did write in a 2004 book that his “favorite Broadway show is Evita by Andrew Lloyd Webber, starring Patti LuPone. I saw it six times, mostly with [his first wife] Ivana.”

It may be Trump sees himself as a modern-day Evita. Speaking to ABC News in 2018, Amanda Eubanks Winkler, an associate professor of music history and culture at Syracuse University, drew direct comparisons.

Evita, she said, “was star of radio dramas and to a lesser extent film in Argentina, and then she went on and had this political career and political power”.

In Trump’s 2016 campaign, she said, the billionaire reality TV star echoed Evita’s appeal to the “Descamisados”, or “shirtless ones”, by “trying to reach out to people, working class people and you can see that in terms of the demographics of folks who voted for him”.

In American Carnage, Trump says he first saw Ocasio-Cortez during her primary against Crowley, while watching TV with political advisers.

“I see a young woman,” he says, “ranting and raving like a lunatic on a street corner, and I said: ‘That’s interesting, go back.’”

Alberta then says the Trump “became enamored” and “starstruck” by Ocasio-Cortez.

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

Alberta writes that Trump, whom he interviewed for the book in late 2018, “places a comically exotic emphasis on the nickname: Ah-vit-tah.” He also reports that Trump treated Ocasio-Cortez’s victory over Crowley as a chance to remind his advisers he is “good at talent. I spotted talent. She’s got a certain talent.”

She’s got talent. Now, that’s the good news. The bad news: she doesn’t know anything

Trump does row back on his praise, 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.”