A CO-FOUNDER of the controversial political organization Moms for Liberty has hit back at claims it is a hate group and called on those frightened of its aims to join them instead.
Tina Descovich, a Florida mother who helped create the conservative group three years ago, explained to The U.S. Sun why she believes a Trump presidency will make life better for American women and girls.
The 50-year-old also expressed her support for Trump's running mate pick, JD Vance, in the wake of controversial comments he has made about women.
Tina described herself as just a regular mom, who was radicalized by her time serving on Florida school boards between 2016 and 2020.
Along with her fellow Moms for Liberty cofounders Tiffany Justice and Bridget Ziegler, she says she was exposed to "what was happening behind the public education curtain," and, in particular, "how parental rights were being stripped."
She talked proudly of her group's meteoric rise since its launch on New Year's Day, 2021, with just "$500 and a box of t-shirts."
A mere three years later, Moms for Liberty boasts more than 300 chapters in all but two states, along with what Tina likes to call "130,000 moms on the ground."
What does she put the staggering success of her group down to?
"Our growth has been by the grace of god," she told The U.S. Sun, talking about the "real need" in the United States to help parents "feeling alone and frustrated" at the state of public education.
"The national conversation needs to focus on the failure of public education and what teachers' unions have done," she explained.
She accused the Democrats of presiding over "the lowest reading scores in our country since the 1980s, and the lowest math scores in the history of the United States."
Those figures are backed up by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports, which show reading scores for 13-year-olds are at their lowest level since 1971.
For mathematics, the drop is not quite as stark, although they do show the lowest figures since 1990.
Both the math and reading levels dropped sharply since 2020, with female and black students showing the most drastic decline since then.
Tina and Tiffany have taken Moms for Liberty from the activist fringe of the Republican Party to a major pressure group, with Donald Trump even speaking at a recent summit.
At last month's Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, it demonstrated how far it had come by booking a 2,500-capacity theater just blocks from where Trump was speaking.
Although not officially a partisan group, Tina says that she is "grateful" for Trump's support and that he "cares about our country."
She explains why she believes mothers are an important - if under-utilized - demographic in US elections.
"Historically, a lot of moms aren't active politically," she said, adding that they didn't tend to "care" about Washington shenanigans.
But the message they say they are putting forward is that "you can protect your child by voting," and that they want moms to be "empowered" to take part in their organization.
Moms for Liberty only officially endorses candidates in school board races, where it has elected representatives to 380 so far.
Despite that, Tina explains that it is very involved in "turning the vote out," and that she believes it has a crucial role in November's election.
Focusing on four key swing states - Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin - Tina says it is "working to turn those moms out on the issues they care about."
But why the focus on mothers to the exclusion of other women?
"Nobody will fight for their children like a mother," she explained. "When your children are being put in a situation, when your daughters are being put in a bathroom that boys can come into, and boys can play on their teams and they can get harmed, mothers are gonna fight and stand up like heck."
Moms for Liberty has generated huge controversy and was described as a far-right "hate group" last year by civil rights organization the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Multiple chapters have campaigned to ban books discussing gender and sexuality from school libraries, and it has reported links to the Proud Boys, which has been described as a neo-Nazi group.
But Tina insists that the group's support for Trump is grounded not in issues of mixed-gender bathrooms and divisive books, but instead in the economy.
Asked how life in America might be different for women and girls in 2028 if Trump wins and serves a full second term, she went straight to the cost of living.
Explaining how she had gone to buy a pot roast recently for her son, she claimed she was forced to leave the grocery store after the dish - which used to cost $20-22 before Biden took office - was now $43.
"When Donald Trump is president, I really hope my pot roast goes back to $22," she said.
"Gas prices will be better, the economy will be better, parental rights will be protected. Boys will not be in girls' bathrooms. The [teachers'] union will lose the power it has over the White House right now which is unacceptable."
Tina also claimed to have not heard about the controversial comments made by JD Vance, Trump's pick for running mate, regarding women.
The comments, made in 2021, resurfaced following the surprise pick of Vance, 39, to be on the ticket with Trump, despite a lack of political experience.
Speaking about women leaving "unhappy" or even "violent" marriages, Vance described it as "one of the great tricks" pulled by the "sexual revolution."
He added that "making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear," didn't help out "the kids of those marriages."
But Tina said that while she didn't "know" the comments referred to, she believed Vance had been "attacked in the media," and his words "twisted," just as she claimed had happened to her.
"The man I saw, Vance, doesn't sound like the sort of man that would say the things you're insinuating," she said. "I'm gonna go ahead and give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that the media twisted his words."
And what would she say to LGBTQ Americans and their families, many of whom could be alarmed about Moms for Liberty's greater potential influence under a Trump presidency?
"Don't believe what you see in the media, don't believe what you see online, and absolutely don't believe the Southern Poverty Law Center," she said.
"We have members of the LGBTQ community on our senior staff, we have chapter chairs that our members of the community. They understand the work that we're doing to protect children.
"Just because you're a member of the LGBTQ community does not mean that you want harm to happen to children. Join us. Come talk to us, see what we're about. You can't believe the lies."
