Where this was said
Candidate Controversies and the Vetting Problem
At 21:52 · chapter starts 21:01
The episode doesn't let the DSA off the hook for the Daria-Liza Avila Chevalier controversy, and this chapter is the most uncomfortable stretch of the conversation [1] — Megan Rohmer "DSA co-chair Megan Rohmer doesn't pretend the vetting problem doesn't exist. New York winner Daria-Liza Avila Chevalier tweeted about wipin…" 21:01 . Noel King recounts the offending tweets in detail — the American flag as a napkin, the view that white people shouldn't be in interracial relationships — and notes that Chevalier has since apologized and deleted her Twitter account. Rohmer's response is part defense, part honest reckoning: the DSA is drawing from a pool of people who never imagined they'd run for office, so the standard vetting pipeline doesn't apply. She compares it (unfavorably) to Trump's tweets, which King doesn't let slide. The core tension is real and unresolved: the very thing that makes DSA candidates authentic and grassroots also means their pasts are unpolished and sometimes embarrassing in ways that establishment candidates would never survive.
New York DSA winner Daria-Liza Avila Chevalier had previously tweeted about wiping her hands on an American flag and suggesting white people shouldn't be in interracial relationships; she apologized and deleted her Twitter account.
DSA co-chair Megan Rohmer doesn't pretend the vetting problem doesn't exist. New York winner Daria-Liza Avila Chevalier tweeted about wiping her hands on an American flag and suggested white people shouldn't be in interracial relationships. Rohmer's defense: 'We're not forming candidates in a lab.'
The DSA does not equivocate: they call Israel's actions in Gaza a genocide and describe Gaza as an 'open-air concentration camp.' Megan Rohmer says the fury is justified by the facts, but concedes that people's words don't always carry the nuance they should.
