Ocasio-Cortez: ‘DeSantis has made some very large, critical errors’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said in an interview that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) “has made some very large, critical errors” as the governor contends for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024. 

During an appearance on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki,” host Jen Psaki asked Ocasio-Cortez if she thinks former President Trump will be the easiest Republican candidate for President Biden to go up against in 2024. 

“Yes. I think there’s something to be said about that. The dynamics of these races change from day to day,” Ocasio-Cortez told Psaki. “I think that Governor DeSantis has made some very large, critical errors.” 

Ocasio-Cortez explained that DeSantis, who has been Florida’s governor since 2019, is trying to outdo fellow candidate Trump, noting his recent attacks and legislation targeting his state’s school system and LGBTQ community. 

“Well, you can’t out-Trump Trump, right? And that’s what he’s really been trying to do. His attacks on teachers, on schools, on LGBT Americans I think go way too far in the State of Florida,” the lawmaker said. “And I think that they are a profound political miscalculation and an overcompensation.”

Ocasio-Cortez added that she thinks DeSantis sacrificed showcasing himself to be the rational candidate compared to Trump in an effort to win votes from Trump’s base. 

“He may be trying to win a base, but that base belongs to Donald Trump,” she added. “And he has sacrificed, I think, the one thing that others may have thought would make him competitive, which is this idea that he would somehow be more rational than Donald Trump, which he isn’t.”

Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks come as questions surround DeSantis’s presidential campaign strategy nearly a month after he launched his 2024 presidential bid. DeSantis launched his presidential campaign in a Twitter Spaces live forum with Elon Musk last month. 

Even after the anticipation of his campaign launch, DeSantis still continues to trail Trump in national polls, as results from Real Clear Politics’s average of polls show 52.4 percent of respondents support Trump, while 21.5 percent cast their support for DeSantis.