New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is refusing to distance himself from a congressional candidate whose deleted social media posts, spanning 2018 to 2022, called the United States "a f-----g disgrace," demanded the abolition of borders, police, and prisons, and attacked figures across the political spectrum from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris to Bernie Sanders.
The candidate is Darializa Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old community organizer running to unseat five-term Democratic incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat in New York's 13th congressional district, which covers Upper Manhattan and parts of the west Bronx. Mamdani first endorsed her in late May. When Fox News Digital reported on the resurfaced posts and pressed Mamdani at a Wednesday news conference, he did not back away.
He doubled down.
The now-deleted posts attributed to Avila Chevalier paint a picture that goes well beyond standard progressive politics. Fox News Digital reported that she slammed the United States, the Democratic Party, private property, police, and borders, and called to nationalize large swaths of the private sector.
In one post, she wrote: "This country is a f-----g disgrace." In another: "I forgot to get napkins so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me."
A 2021 repost attributed to Avila Chevalier declared that abolishing borders, prisons, and police is "possible, necessary, and the only moral way forward." She wrote separately that "all deportation is wrong" and "Yes, literally abolish the border."
Her targets were not limited to Republicans or conservatives. She reportedly called former President Joe Biden a "rapist" and "war criminal." She chastised Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, for his "liberal Zionism." And she wrote, in language we'll clean up here: "F--k Kamala Harris."
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Avila Chevalier demanded $3,000 per month in universal basic income, the nationalization of utilities, pharmaceutical companies, and hospitals, the suspension of mortgages and rent, the seizure of private property from landlords, the dissolution of insurance companies, and an expansion of Medicare to every citizen. That is not a reform agenda. That is a wish list for dismantling the private economy.
Fox News Digital also reported that Avila Chevalier led anti-Israel protests at Columbia University, a detail that tracks with the broader activist profile the posts reveal.
Pressed at the Wednesday news conference, Mamdani offered a familiar dodge: he said he hadn't seen the posts, and that Avila Chevalier's views had "evolved." His full response is worth reading, because it shows how far New York's political class will stretch to avoid accountability.
"When it comes to Darializa's campaign, I had not seen those tweets and what I've heard from her and what I know a lot of others in the district that have heard from her is that her views have evolved and that the campaign she is running on is reflective of what she's going to be fighting for."
He then went further, praising her record in terms that will raise eyebrows outside the progressive bubble. Mamdani cited Avila Chevalier's work "freeing New Yorkers who are unjustly detained by ICE" as a credential, not a liability. He called her a champion for working people and for a district he said fears "displacement" and "being pushed out of a place you helped to build."
On MS NOW, Mamdani was even more effusive, saying Avila Chevalier "grew up with a commitment to the very people that politics have left behind" and that he couldn't wait for her to be "introduced to so many across the city and across this country."
The mayor's position, stripped of its rhetoric, amounts to this: a candidate who called America a disgrace, demanded open borders, wanted to abolish police and prisons, and attacked members of her own party in vulgar terms has simply "evolved", and voters should trust her new packaging without asking hard questions about the old one. That's a lot of faith to place in someone whose posts were deleted, not retracted with a public explanation.
This episode fits a broader pattern among the progressive left's rising figures in New York and beyond. The playbook is familiar: radical positions get posted, then scrubbed when a candidate enters the mainstream arena. Allies then insist the candidate has "grown," and the press is expected to move on. It is the same kind of controversy that has dogged other progressive Democrats who found their past statements catching up with them at inconvenient moments.
But the scope of Avila Chevalier's deleted posts is remarkable even by that standard. This was not a single intemperate remark. The posts spanned at least four years. They covered foreign policy, domestic economics, law enforcement, immigration, and the American flag itself. They attacked a sitting president, a vice president, and the most prominent left-wing senator in the country. And the policy demands, nationalizing hospitals, seizing landlords' property, dissolving insurance companies, go far beyond anything the Democratic mainstream has endorsed.
Mamdani's willingness to stand by all of this tells voters something about his own judgment. He has already drawn sharp scrutiny from the federal government. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin called Mamdani a "socialist communist" with "zero respect" and said DHS would "restore law" in American cities and pursue criminals "no matter where they're at," including New York. That clash, which drew national attention earlier this year, set the stage for the current controversy.
A mayor who feuds with federal immigration enforcement and then endorses a congressional candidate who wrote "all deportation is wrong" and "Yes, literally abolish the border" is not sending mixed signals. He is sending a clear one.
New York's primary election is set for June 23. Avila Chevalier is challenging Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a five-term incumbent, in a district that stretches across Upper Manhattan and parts of the west Bronx. The district is heavily Democratic, which means the primary is effectively the general election.
Fox News Digital reached out to the offices of Mamdani, Avila Chevalier, and Espaillat. None responded to requests for comment. The silence from Avila Chevalier's camp is notable. If her views have truly "evolved," as Mamdani claims, a public explanation of what changed and why would be the obvious move. Instead, the posts were quietly deleted and the candidate has offered no on-the-record accounting.
Espaillat, for his part, is no moderate by national standards. But the fact that he now faces a primary challenge from someone who demanded the seizure of private property and the abolition of every law-enforcement institution in the country shows just how far left the gravitational pull has become in certain New York districts. The pattern of political figures being caught by their own records is not limited to one party, but the substance of what was said here stands out.
Voters in the 13th district deserve to know whether Avila Chevalier still believes the United States is "a f-----g disgrace," whether she still wants to abolish the border, and whether she still thinks seizing private property from landlords is sound policy. Mamdani's assurance that she has "evolved" is not a substitute for her own answers.
The deeper issue is not one candidate's old social media posts. It is the institutional comfort that New York's progressive establishment has with radicalism, and the reflexive willingness to excuse it when it becomes inconvenient. Mamdani did not condemn the posts. He did not say they were wrong. He said he hadn't seen them, and then praised the candidate who wrote them.
That response is a window into the incentive structure of New York progressive politics. There is no cost for having held extreme positions. There is no expectation of a genuine public reckoning. The only requirement is that the positions disappear from public view before the campaign begins. Accountability, in this world, is something that happens to other people.
Mamdani's own clashes with federal authorities over immigration enforcement have already placed him at odds with the law-and-order expectations most Americans hold for their elected officials. Endorsing a candidate who called for abolishing police, prisons, and borders, and who used the American flag as a napkin, is consistent with that posture. It is also a gift to every critic who argues that New York's progressive leadership has lost touch with the values of ordinary, law-abiding citizens.
The ongoing turbulence in national politics has created openings for candidates across the spectrum. But openings are not entitlements. Voters have a right to know what a candidate believed for four years, not just what she says now that she's running.
When a candidate deletes the evidence and a mayor says "trust me," the people paying the bills have every reason to ask: trust you based on what, exactly?
