Rep. Adriano Espaillat has launched a damning ad demanding Mayor Zohran Mamdani-backed foe Darializa Avila Chevalier account for her nasty tweets — including one that slammed black and Arab men for “fetishizing ugly colonizer women.”
“Meet the real Darializa, the one she tried to delete,” says the narrator in the 30-second spot for the veteran Democratic congressman, who reps northern Manhattan and the northwest Bronx.
The ad includes a clip of former vice president and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris interspersed with Chevalier’s tweet, “I have no nuance to add. F—k Kamala Harris.”
Then a clip of former President Joe Biden appears, with the wannabe rep’s tweet, “I will never give my vote to a rapist.”
Biden has vehemently denied allegations from a former Senate aide that he sexually assaulted her in 1993 and has never been charged with anything.
Espaillat’s ad also shows an elderly veteran saluting alongside a Chevalier post bragging about wiping her hand with the American flag.
“She won’t stand by veterans or the American flag,” the narrator says.
DAC previously tweeted, “I forget to get napkins. So I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me” — with the statement accompanied by a smile emoji.
Lastly, a picture of a mixed-race couple appears alongside Chevalier’s line slamming “black men” and “Arab men” for “fetishizing ugly colonizer women.”
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During a WNYC radio debate last week, DAC brushed off complaints about her old tweets, which she deleted but which were archived and have since been retrieved from the internet.
“I’m not interested in relitigating the politics of my tweets, which are the politics of the past,” said Chevalier, 32.
She claimed that discussing old tweets is a diversion from the substantive issues she’s championing in the campaign and how she was more progressive than Espaillat while attacking his record, particularly his support for Israel.
Espaillat fired back to host Brian Lehrer during the call-in debate, “Her record are her tweets.
“I stand by my record because I have a record, but the fact of the matter is that her record are her tweets, right? And why would she erase her tweets …. from a couple of years ago?” Espaillat said..
Espaillat, 71, a former state senator and assemblyman, is seeking reelection to a sixth term in New York’s 13th House district. He succeeded the late Congressman Charles Rangel.
He’s the first Dominican-American elected to the House of Representatives and is chairman of the House Hispanic Caucus.
DAC, also Dominican-American, is an immigration-rights activist who has worked for an organization that fights deportation and detention. The Columbia University alumna has spearheaded anti-Israel protests over the war in Gaza.
She is a friend of Mahmoud Khalil, the anti-Israel protester and former Columbia University graduate student whose deportation fight has ignited the left.
She is endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America and Justice Democrats as well as Mamdani, who surprisingly put his political credibility on the line to topple Espaillat.
The ad touches on just a few of Avila Chavelier’s incendiary tweets.
She also has called the United States “a f–king disgrace.”
DAC is not a fan of cops, either.
“No more police at all ever,” she also posted, with clapping hands between each word to emphasize the point.
