Gov. Josh Shapiro sat down with Dana Bash on CNN's State of the Union this weekend and said the quiet part out loud: his party is being overrun by its socialist and far left flank.
Bash pressed Shapiro on Darializa Avila Chevalier, who won the Democratic congressional primary in New York’s 13th congressional district last month while running as an open socialist.
Chevalier's platform includes abolishing prisons, opening the borders, ending deportations, and granting mercy even to violent criminals.
Bash also noted that Chevalier attended a pro-Palestinian rally on October 8, 2023, one day after Hamas terrorists slaughtered, raped, and kidnapped their way across southern Israel.
According to Bash, that rally featured antisemitic rhetoric defending the attack. Bash asked Shapiro how he feels, as a Democrat, about someone with those views heading to Congress.
Shapiro tried to have it both ways.
"Well, her district voted for her," he said. But that statement also came with a convenient disclaimer. "But I have profound differences from that particular candidate, based on the citations that you read there. And she's not someone who, you know, seemingly, I would agree with on many things, or that we share similar values. She ran on the Democratic ticket, I guess as a socialist; her voters in that district determined that she was the one they wanted representing them."
Note the hedge. Shapiro was describing someone who wants to shield violent criminals from deportation and who reportedly stood in solidarity with people cheering a massacre of Jews. Yet, the strongest word he could summon was "seemingly."
Bash followed up by asking what Chevalier's win says about the Democratic Party. Here Shapiro dropped whatever remained of the d
