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.
