(StraightNews.org) – A former CNN anchor has announced he will run for Congress, hoping to unseat New York Republican Nick LaLota. John Avlon called LaLota a “MAGA minion” on a social media post while warning that Donald Trump threatens American democracy.
Avlon said his priorities were to defeat Trump, restore reproductive rights, and invest in infrastructure. He will compete against State Sen. James Gaughran, New York City Judge Craig Herskowitz, ex-Congressional staff member Kyle Hill, and Stony Brook University’s Nancy Goroff. LaLota has held the 1st Congresional District seat since 2022, when former Rep. Lee Zeldin stood down to run in the Empire State’s gubernatorial seat.
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) released a statement calling Avlon a “smug, liberal hack” and vowed to expose his far left-wing views. Mr. LaLota called him an elitist from Manhattan with no ties to the Long Island seat “other than his summer home in the Hamptons.”
In a recent op-ed for CNN, Avlon said Americans are walking into a Donald Trump dictatorship and noted Republican refusal to back legislation ostensibly aimed at securing the US southern border. Avlon blamed Trump for the House rejection of the bill and said right-wing Republicans were assaulting American politics.
Donald Trump spoke against the $113 billion bill backed by the White House and the Senate but opposed by House Republicans. It would have given $60 billion to Ukraine and came with policies that would allow Joe Biden to shut down the border if a numerical threshold average of 5,000 migrants per day was met. Trump called it a “death wish” for the Republican party, saying it allowed Democrats to claim victory on the border just in time for the Presidential election.
The New York 1st Congressional District is an area that voted for Biden in 2020 but Republican in 2022 and is on a list of Democrat targets for 2024. Avlon states he will replace “hyper-partisanship” with “real leadership” if elected in November.
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