Tim Burchett vows to block socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier from Congress after she used US flag as napkin

Representative Tim Burchett said he would try to block New York Democratic congressional nominee Darializa Avila Chevalier from taking office if she wins her upcoming election. Burchett cited Chevalier’s past comment in which she said she would use the American flag as a napkin.

In an interview with the New York Post, Burchett said he would try to use a simple majority vote in January to block Chevalier from taking her seat should she win. 

“You take an oath to uphold the Constitution, and you’re pretty much disavowing it right there. I just think we’ve lost our compass,” he said.

“I’m looking at a 48-star flag that hung on my uncle’s casket and [he] died fighting the Nazis, and then see somebody going to get elected to Congress in New York who said they use that flag for a napkin,” he continued. “I thought, man, that same dadgum flag hung on my uncle’s casket. It’s the same flag that men and women fought and died for to free the slaves, and that’s what they’re using as a napkin.”

“If we vote to seat them, is one Democrat going to say no? I’m not going to vote to seat those people. Are they gonna say anything? Democrats died for this country as well as Republicans did,” Burchett added.

Burchett also called on the Democratic Party to “get some guts” and to “get their rudder back for the working people.” 

Under the US Constitution, the House of Representatives and the Senate have the authority to judge the elections and qualifications of their own members. In 1967, the House voted to exclude Democratic Representative Adam Clayton Powell; however, the Supreme Court ruled two years later that the House had exceeded its constitutional authority.

Chevalier is running for New York’s 13th Congressional district after defeating incumbent Democratic Representative Adriano Espaillat in the party’s primary. The socialist candidate’s controversial remarks were made in 2019 in a post on then-Twitter, where she wrote, “I forgot to get napkins so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me.” 

This isn’t the only controversial thing Chevalier has done to draw attention to herself. She previously participated in the 2024 campus takeover at Columbia, where she was connected to a group calling for the “total eradication of Western civilization.” She has also called the US a “f*cking disgrace.”