Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) argued Sunday on NBC's 'Meet the Press' that President Donald Trump is the 'biggest threat' to America. 'Right now the biggest threat to this country are not a handful of House candidates in New York,' he told host Ryan Nobles. 'It is the president of the United States that is trying to destroy American democracy, and the Democratic Party, left, right and center is united around the fact that we need to protect this nation from Donald Trump's attacks on the rule of law.'
Attack Ad and Primary Election
Murphy made the remark after Nobles asked about his reaction to an attack ad that fellow Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat launched against Darializa Avila Chevalier — a democratic socialist. Chevalier won Tuesday night's primary election in New York's 13th Congressional District. In the ad, Espaillat called out Zohran Mamdani-backed candidate Chevalier for saying 'Fuck Kamala Harris' and accusing former President Joe Biden of being a rapist in since-deleted tweets.
'Listen, it's no secret, voters aren't super happy with establishment Democrats or establishment Republicans these days,' Murphy told Nobles. 'I will say, though, what binds together I think every Democratic candidate that is running, including the ones in New York, is that they are standing up to protect American democracy.'
SAVE Act and Voter ID
Elsewhere in the interview, Murphy called Trump the 'most unpopular president in the recent history of this country' when asked if he would support the president's push to pass the SAVE Act, which would require American voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections. Earlier this month, Trump demanded Congress first pass the radical Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act before he signs a landmark bipartisan housing affordability bill aimed at repairing the national affordability crisis.
'I mean, it depends on what it looks like in Connecticut. You know, we have safe and secure elections. This whole idea behind the SAVE Act is trying to push a mythology that our elections aren't secure, are rigged. That's not true. The problem with the SAVE Act is that they don't really care about the voter ID provision,' Murphy contested. 'That's not why they're pushing the SAVE Act.'
Nobles then interjected to press Murphy over whether he thinks requiring Americans to have a photo ID to vote in elections should be necessary. 'There's no evidence, zero evidence in this country, that there is a problem at scale with people faking their identification in elections,' he replied. 'And again, let's just dispense with the idea that that's what this bill is about. That's not what this bill is about. This bill is about trying to create a national voter list that creates the pretext for Donald Trump to try to say that state elections have been rigged or manipulated.'
