In an interview with MS NOW’s Ali Velshi, Avila Chevalier, the Democratic nominee for New York’s 13th congressional district, responds to accusations that she is a communist.

ALI VELSHI, MS NOW HOST: Donald Trump talked about communists being elected last night. There were three of you in the congressional races, and there were five people who Zohran Mamdani supported in state races. All eight of you won. How do you avoid becoming the ad for Republicans? You know, we’ve watched Zohran Mamdani, and he’s managed it very well. We’ve watched Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has managed it very well. She’s become a sort of a very policy-centered person. I don’t think she’s changed any of her views. How do you navigate this road? Because now you are a member of the Democratic delegation. You will be a member of the Democratic delegation, and you’re going to appear in all sorts of people’s ads, all sorts of Republicans’ ads, to say this is what you’re going to get if you vote for the Democrats, a communist. AVILA CHEVALIER (D-NY), NEW YORK 13TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE: You know, I think that framing is one that I’ve been very proud to be able to say I don’t respond to, one in which I have been very intentional to say I won’t be reactive. We are presenting a vision of what we’re fighting for, and I think for far too long we have had politics that is reactive to what Republicans are doing. What we need is Democrats who are actually going to present a positive vision, one that sets the tone for what we should be talking about, which is the issue of affordability, which is the issue of how our budgets are moral documents. If we say that we want to invest in working people in this country, then we need to do that, and our budgets need to reflect that. If we say that we value immigration and immigration justice, we need to make sure that that is also reflective in our policy. And so I’m very proud of a campaign that we built that centers those ideals, that centers those values and that vision for what we need as a community, and that’s how I’ll continue to move forward in Congress. And I think that for far too long this reactive conversation of what we should be afraid of has prevented us from being able to have a politics of hope and a politics of life that Democrats can actually identify with. When the majority of the Democratic base has been seeking for the Democratic Party to actually fight for them, that should be the language that we should be leading with.

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