MIAMI — U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio deflected questions Friday about the extremist past of a Republican canvasser who was heavily beaten and sent to the hospital, as questions remain about whether the attack was politically motivated.
“I think it’s shameful that you’re focused on the victim and not the aggressor,” Rubio said, after a reporter asked how he felt that a person once involved with white supremacist groups was representing his campaign. “Do you know anything about the attacker? Do you have any questions about the attackers who are career criminals?”
Christopher Monzon, a canvasser with the Republican Party of Florida, was attacked Sunday evening after two men confronted him as he passed out fliers in Hialeah, south of Amelia Earhart Park. Monzon told police that both alleged attackers — Javier Jesus Lopez and Jonathan Alexander Casanova — punched, kicked and slammed him on the pavement, as one of them directed his German shepherds to attack him.
Monzon told police that Casanova told him he “could not pass through because he was a Republican and his dogs were ready to attack,” according to Casanova’s arrest affidavit. Monzon told investigators he walked onto the street to avoid them, and that Casanova told him, “He was not allowed to walk around his neighborhood and if he continued to do so he would shoot him,” the affidavit claims. Monzon replied that he was on public property and could be in the area.
The episode received widespread media attention after Rubio claimed Monday morning that the attack was politically motivated. It has since surfaced that the victim, Monzon, was once a member of the Florida chapter of the League of the South, a white supremacist organization labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. He is also the vice president of the Miami Springs Republican Club.
Monzon, who once ran for Hialeah City Council, has been quoted in several media reports in the years since saying he renounced his extremist lifestyle.
The mother of Lopez, who is accused of aggravated assault, rejected the idea that the attack was incited by political differences, telling the Miami Herald this week that her son has no strong political beliefs and has never even voted.
Meanwhile, Rubio railed on the media coverage of the incident Friday, saying Monzon was receiving unfair treatment because he’s a conservative. The Herald was not invited to the press conference — the campaign said only TV media was invited to attend.
“He was the victim of a crime. By the way, I think he’s rejected all those things and that’s what we want people that have those views to do, to change their minds and reject them and walk away from them. But he was the victim of a felony so how many stories have you done on the criminals that attacked him?” Rubio said during the heated exchange.
Rubio added he didn’t “know what this young man did in his past,” while also acknowledging he has rejected his past extremist views.
“It’s shameful what’s happened in media and how it’s OK to shame and attack a victim when the victim is a conservative. It’s disgusting, it’s grotesque,” he added.
He also alluded to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi, who was attacked Thursday night in a home invasion with a hammer by an attacker who authorities said was shouting, “Where is Nancy?” While he condemned the attack, Rubio appeared to say the attention on Monzon’s past would be like choosing to focus on Paul Pelosi’s DUI arrest back in August.
“We don’t know the motive, but he was attacked in his home. If it was politically motivated, it’s a crime and I condemn it. If it wasn’t politically motivated, it’s a crime and I condemn it,” he said. “He just recently was arrested. I’m not bringing that up. Does he deserve to be beaten in his home because he has a previous arrest a few months ago? No, he doesn’t.”
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