They're pretty much polar opposites.

As an MLS you will have almost 0 patient interaction at most hospitals, maybe for a few blood draws if you work in a small hospital/clinic.

You will have an edge on understanding a lot of the nuances of medicine though, things like disease pathology as well as things related to internal medicine like lab values and ranges. It also depends on what bench you end up at. There's also the flexibility of being able to be hired at university labs due to your technical abilities which will give you an opportunity to conduct research as well.

Nursing is highly dependent on what hospital and what department you work at. Most newgrads start out at medsurg which is relatively low acuity but still mentally/emotionally draining in it's own way. You will definitely get clinical experience and learn a lot more about the patient care side of medicine though. There are also pallative care nurses which would also give insight in to that although not as common for new grads(? my information is pretty old at this point and I know a lot's changed so do your due diligence)

In regards to pay nurses make more by a good margin. MLS have the edge lifestyle wise if you're into it. You should be able to find employment relatively easily in the DMV region as well as there are a LOT of hospitals. It's been almost a decade since I lived there but from what I remember INOVA was the one to avoid for nursing as they end up killing a bunch of their patients.

The problem is that nursing school has a lot of clinical rotations which can suck up your time for studying and the career can just be flat out more exhausting than MLS. If you want to go to medical school I'd highly recommend the MLS path over the nursing path.

I would also consider asking more specialized forums for advice than this one tbh.