EXCLUSIVE: 'God played quite a joke on me with this politics stuff!' The privacy-loving mother of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez whips up lasagna as she tells how she had to flee New York because of high taxes and gushes about wedding bells for her daughter

  • U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's mother Blanca Ocasio-Cortez has spoken exclusively to DailyMail.com about her Democrat star daughter
  • Blanca Ocasio-Cortez – BOC – is still settling down in Eustis, Florida, a small city in the far suburbs of Orlando with her mother Clotilde, 78, and a rescue dog 
  • She said: 'After my husband died the family went through tough times. I was cleaning houses in the morning and working as a secretary in the afternoon' 
  • 'We moved from The Bronx to Yorktown Heights, but it was difficult making ends meet. I was skipping mortgage payments and we almost lost the house twice' 
  • Early on, AOC didn't show signs she'd get into politics - except that she talked incessantly and itched to show off her brains, her mother said  
  • 'She wasn't raised to be a socialist,' Mrs. Ocasio-Cortez said. 'That's not how Puerto Ricans are. She's a democratic socialist, and it's very different'
  • Blanca was particularly put off by the controversy surrounding AOC's move into  D.C. high-rise, saying 'that building isn't even that expensive by D.C. and New York standards'
  • The mother-of-two said her new Trump-supporting Florida neighbors don't know she is AOC's mother, saying she doesn't like the limelight for her family