FIRST ON FOX: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., continued spending campaign cash in Puerto Rico, including at an upscale hotel in the territory’s capital despite being slammed last year for spending lavishly there on meals, lodging and entertainment while simultaneously railing against gentrification in San Juan.
The final year-end campaign finance reports ahead of the November midterms were released this past weekend. AOC’s Q4 report revealed she spent close to $4,000 more at the Hotel Palacio Provincial in San Juan, after she came under fire for spending thousands of campaign dollars there in Q3. AOC’s spending during Q3 also included tens of thousands of dollars for fancy dinners and a “venue rental” at the same San Juan arena where the congresswoman was spotted dancing in a suite at a Bad Bunny concert in August, amounting to nearly $50,000 spent in Puerto Rico across one reporting period.
AOC’s Q4 spending report for the final months of 2025 follows a similar pattern as the previous quarters, with disbursement records denoting thousands of dollars going toward four- and five-star hotel accommodations and fancy dining. In total, in 2025, AOC spent roughly $53,500 on these luxury and “boutique” hotels.
AOC’s use of campaign dollars in 2025 also included upscale dining at restaurants where meals are easily $100 per person, such as a sushi restaurant in New York City with a $150 14-course tasting menu, a seafood restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip, and a fancy San Juan restaurant where cocktails eclipse $20.
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“What better way to ‘fight the oligarchy’ than to use campaign funds on luxury hotels,” quipped Republican campaign strategist Mark Bednar, who has worked for lawmakers like former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and current Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy when he was in Congress. “If AOC has plans to follow through on presidential ambitions, she will need to explain to voters how her campaign spending squares with her campaign rhetoric.”
When asked if AOC thought she needed to explain her campaign spending on luxurious hotels during 2025, the congresswoman’s representatives did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Many of the luxury hotels AOC spent thousands on in 2025 were not far from her home district, pointed out Daniel Turner, who is from Queens but eventually left. He is a longtime political communications strategist and is the founder of Power The Future, an energy-focused nonprofit. Much of his family still remains in Queens.
“The difference between me and AOC is that I am actually from Queens. AOC, who pretends that she is from Queens, and pretends that she is one of us, is acting the way all New Yorkers do toward Queens. When she needs a luxury event, she goes to Brooklyn, or she goes to Manhattan. When she wants to do something fancy, she leaves altogether and she goes to resorts in Puerto Rico. She can’t spend that sort of money in her own district, because her own district is poor, like the parts of Queens where I grew up, and she’s fine with that,” Turner told Fox News Digital.
“She’s fine with the enormous amounts of prostitution… she’s fine with underage Latina girls who are selling themselves in her district, and she’s going to go to Puerto Rico and talk about gentrification.”
Some of the fancier hotels that AOC spent her time at in 2025 include The Langham Huntington, located in Pasadena, California, Vdara Hotel & Spa, located in the heart of Sin City, the Lansdowne Resort & Spa located in rural Virginia, the Hyatt Grand Central, located just 5–10 miles outside of AOC’s district in Queens, and the upscale Westdrift Manhattan Beach.
The majority of the stays were several thousand dollars, including a stop in Salt Lake City at the four-star Asher Adams Hotel, which cost over $3,100. Additionally, many of the hotel locations corresponded with AOC’s “Fight Oligarchy” tour stops she attended alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in 2025.
The Leo Kent Hotel in Tuscon, the Arlo Williamsburg in Brooklyn, Bottleworks Hotel in downtown Indianapolis, and the Hotel El Convento in San Juan, were among the list of other upscale hotels AOC spent thousands of campaign dollars on during 2025, according to her financial disclosures.
“The people of her district would be thrilled if she spent just a percentage of that amount of money in her own area, but she doesn’t want to represent that part of Queens. She doesn’t really even want to represent New York City,” Turner continued. “She thinks of herself as the congresswoman of more glamorous locations and more worldly causes.”
Meanwhile, AOC used campaign dollars in 2025 at fancy restaurants like CATCH on the Vegas Strip, where 12 pieces of Nigiri, 12 pieces of Sashimi, a tuna avocado roll and salmon roe cucumber cups will cost you $225.
Another place that AOC used campaign cash to dine was Sushi Ouiji, where guests dine on a $150 14-course tasting menu made with fish flown in directly from a Japanese fish market.
AOC didn’t skimp on food in Puerto Rico, during Q3, either. As Fox News Digital previously reported in December, AOC spent $10,743.13 on “catering” and “meals” in Puerto Rico during a single reporting period, including at fancy restaurants like Verde Mesa, where espresso martinis cost $24.
Her campaign picked up the tab for nearly $50,000 in Puerto Rico between late June and September on luxury hotels, pricey meals and a $23,000 “venue rental” at the same San Juan arena where AOC was spotted dancing in a suite at a Bad Bunny concert during an August trip to the U.S. territory. Meanwhile, a video of AOC railing against “the gentrification happening in Puerto Rico” appeared on social media in August around the time of her trip as well.
“This is the problem with carpetbaggers. She can’t look at parts of Roosevelt Avenue and parts of Jackson Heights and say, ‘That used to be this.’ She can’t look to churches there and say, ‘I remember when my grandmother dot, dot, dot.’ She doesn’t look at that neighborhood with the memory that those of us who were born and raised there, and know what it once used to be like, do,” Turner lamented in his comments to Fox News Digital. “For AOC, her district is a stepping stone, but for the people who live there, it’s either a neighborhood that has been destroyed, or it’s full of illegals who are just trying to bilk the system.”
