In a debate that bitterly pitted two battleground congressional candidates — Rep. Brandon Williams (R-NY) and state Sen. John Mannion — towards one another, it was their file on Israel that triggered sparks to fly Tuesday.
After Williams accused Mannion of remaining “silent” within the aftermath of the Oct. 7 assault by Hamas, the Democrat fired again visibly annoyed.
“My opponent has no disgrace,” Mannion started.
“To color me as somebody who shouldn’t be supportive of Israel is outrageous, and it’s disgusting. It’s one other instance of my opponent making an attempt to grandstand on a problem that’s severe,” he continued.
“You had been silent that day John, you had been silent,” Williams retorted.
“Everybody can verify my Fb web page and see that a press release got here out on Oct. 7,” Mannion yelled again as his mic seemed to be shut off.
“We did, and it’s completely shameful,” Williams continued earlier than touting standing with Jewish college students at Syracuse College and threatening college presidents that didn’t shut down pro-Hamas protests.
The back-and-forth was the height of a number of barbs exchanged by the 2 candidates from the beginning of the controversy.
Off the bat, every was requested by moderators to answer assault adverts being levied towards them within the battleground district, which has seen thousands and thousands of {dollars} in assault adverts over the previous few months. They embody adverts highlighting a number of accusations that Mannion and his spouse mistreated staffers.
“They’re untruthful. They need to be rejected. And what we’ve seen is the infiltration of nasty politics, representatives of locations like Texas that must be rejected,” Mannion mentioned.
“The ethics prices towards my opponent are completely true, and so they’re completely severe and people girls need to be heard,” Williams retorted.
Williams additionally pushed again on claims he’d assist a nationwide abortion ban and would reduce social safety.
“I’ve mentioned that clearly I gained’t vote for a nationwide ban,” the congressman mentioned.
Regardless of the barbs, each candidates tried to current themselves as bipartisan.
Mannion — who has by no means needed to compromise with the GOP within the state Senate the place Democrats maintain a supermajority — mentioned he has good working relationships with most of the Republicans who maintain native elected workplaces in his district.
“I’ve extra registered Republicans in my district than Democrats. There are 42 Democratic senators. I’m the one one which has that distinction,” Mannion mentioned.
Williams pointed to a couple examples of him crossing celebration traces to assist a standalone funding invoice for Ukraine help and the Social Safety Equity Act.
He additionally took the chance responsible Mannion for influencing New York’s redistricting plans, the present iteration of which packed some extra Democrats into the district.
“He voted twice to gerrymander this district. One time, in such an egregious means that it was overthrown by the New York state courts, and the second time, in a method to particularly profit his reelection,” Williams mentioned.
On immigration, Mannion blames Williams for not supporting a short-lived bipartisan settlement within the Senate to handle immigration and border safety.
“In some ways, I agree with him on what we have to do,” Mannion mentioned. “The distinction is there’s one individual standing on this stage that might have accomplished one thing, and he didn’t take motion. He continues to speak about it. He continues to make use of poisonous language.”
Williams mentioned the bipartisan negotiations labored out on the opposite aspect of the Capitol didn’t get wherever and weren’t acceptable to him anyway.
“It was not going to unravel the border disaster. In reality, it was going to codify the border disaster. It was going to proceed to permit the flood of unlawful immigrants into this nation,” Williams mentioned.
The race is statistically the very best alternative for Democrats to flip a seat in New York this 12 months. The non-partisan Cook dinner Political Report charges the twenty second District as Lean Democrat, the one district at present held by a Republican that holds that designation.
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