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MS NOW host Mika Brzezinski unloaded on Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., on Monday and accused him of gaslighting after the liberal senator dodged questions about New York Democratic congressional nominee Darializa Avila Chevalier and her controversial statements.
Murphy told “Meet the Press” guest host Ryan Nobles on Sunday that he wasn’t “super familiar” with the race but sought a broader exchange of ideas within the party after he was confronted with a campaign ad highlighting Avila Chevalier’s history of controversial social media posts, which have since been deleted, including her disdain for former President Joe Biden, where she went so far as calling him a “rapist.”
“This is going to be an interesting issue, actually, for candidates on both sides of the aisle, because they’re now many of them are old enough to have past tweets and ridiculous statements, and voters are going to have to decide what the line is. What’s the dealbreaker in this case?” Brzezinski asked.
“I think it’s pretty clear. Some of these statements are complete dealbreakers, and it’s not hard to say,” she continued. “It’s just not hard to say. And one of the most frustrating thing about Trump’s first presidency and his second, and folks who chose to vote for Trump the first time and then vote for him a second time, and then act shocked about the cruelty of the mass deportations, or to act shocked about the tariffs, or to say, ‘well, I haven’t been watching the news. I don’t know about that one.'”
CHRIS MURPHY DODGES QUESTIONS ABOUT DEM SOCIALIST’S CONTROVERSIAL REMARKS WHILE PUSHING PARTY’S ‘BIG TENT’
Mika Brzezinski speaks onstage during Global Citizen NOW 2026 at Spring Studios on May 14, 2026, in New York City. (Noam Galai/Getty Images for Global Citizen)
“That is like the most gaslighting experience one can ever, ever see throughout this entire political cycle or cycles because pretending you haven’t seen it is impossible — it’s an out,” Brzezinski added.
She then called out Democrats like Murphy for doing the same thing.
“And now to see a Democrat doing it — and I like, we both love Chris Murphy, we think he’s a great guy and serves our country. But don’t gaslight people!” she added. “I mean, this story is out there.”
Her co-host and husband, Joe Scarborough, criticized Murphy over his response on X.
Scarborough wrote on X that Democrats should call out “crazy.”
“Memo to Democrats: Call out crazy even when it’s on your side—especially when it’s on your side. Voters will reward you for being better than Republicans,” he wrote. Scarborough then pointed to an X post highlighting her controversial statements.
Congressional candidate Claire Valdez, Congressional candidate Brad Lander, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and Congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier raise their hands during a Get Out the Vote (GOTV) rally at King’s Theater on June 18, 2026, in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Avila Chevalier, 32, a longtime community organizer who led the anti-Israel protests at Columbia University, slammed the United States, the Democratic Party, private property, police, borders and called to nationalize large swaths of the private sector in the now-deleted posts from 2018 to 2022.
In a 2021 repost, Avila Chevalier said that abolishing borders, prisons and police is “possible, necessary, and the only moral way forward,” and later echoed posts that said “all deportation is wrong” and, “Yes, literally abolish the border,” according to a CNN report.
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Darializa Avila Chevalier, Democratic candidate for Congress in New York’s 13th Congressional District, speaks with a voter in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan on June 14, 2026, in New York, N.Y. (Shuran Huang/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“This country is a f—–g disgrace,” she said in a post.
“I forgot to get napkins so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me,” she reportedly said in yet another.
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‘ Peter D’Abrosca contributed to this report.
