Senate Democrat Dodges When Confronted About Socialist Dem Calling Biden a ‘Rapist’: ‘I’m Not Super Familiar With That Race…’
A Senate Democrat dodged a tough question about a Socialist Democrat who just won a primary in New York and is all-but-certain to become a member of Congress in 2027.
In an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) ducked a query on Darializa Avila Chevalier — a Socialist Democrat who defeated powerful incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) on Tuesday in a Democratic primary in New York’s 13th congressional district. Chevalier, in a now-deleted social media post 2020, called former President Joe Biden a “rapist.” NBC’s Ryan Nobles, filling in for Kristen Welker, played an ad from the Espillat campaign which called out Chevalier for labeling Biden a rapist — and lobbed several other criticisms at her.
“She won’t stand by Joe Biden,” the ad intoned. “She even called him a rapist. She won’t stand by veterans or the American flag. She stands with dividing us by race. Meet the real Darializa, the one she tried to delete.”
“So to be clear, Senator, that was an attack ad from a fellow Democrat,” Nobles said coming out of the ad. “You’ve talked about this bigger tent. If you’re saying the Democratic Party needs a bigger tent, does that include someone who called a former Democratic President of the United States a rapist?
Murphy waffled before evading the question entirely.
“Yeah, well, I mean, I’m not super familiar with that race,” Murphy said. “All I’m saying is that this party has to have a real contest of ideas. And I just don’t think that our defense of incrementalism has worked. So I don’t mind a contest of ideas, and I just don’t know that we have had it to the extent that voters have been satisfied.”
The senator went on to try to project a united front among Democrats against President Donald Trump.
“Listen, it’s no secret, voters aren’t super happy with establishment Democrats or establishment Republicans these days,” Murphy said. “I will say, though, what binds together I think every Democratic candidate that is running, including the ones in New York, is that they are standing up to protect American democracy. And right now the biggest threat to this country are not a handful of House candidates in New York. It is the President of the United States that is trying to destroy American democracy, and the Democratic Party, left, right, and center, is united around the fact that we need to protect this nation from Donald Trump’s attacks on the rule of law.”
Watch above, via NBC.
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