Exclusive | Rep. Burchett planning to block NYC socialist Chevalier from Congress after she claimed to use American flag as napkin
Rep.Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) plans to try to block Democratic nominee and New York socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier from taking her seat in Congress if she wins the Nov.
3 election — over her saying she used the American flag as a napkin.Burchett told The Post he intends to make the unusual parliamentary move when the new Congress convenes in January — using a simple majority to prevent newly elected lawmakers from being seated before they take the oath of office.“You take an oath to uphold the Constitution, and and you’re pretty much disavowing it right there.I just think we’ve lost our compass,” he said in an interview.He cited the Chevalier’s incendiary flag comment, which he called an affront to his own family’s military service.
His father was a World War II Marine, while his dad’s brother served on a Navy destroyer.But it is the memory of his maternal uncle — and a family heirloom — that most deeply connects Burchett to the flag.“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 said.“I thought, man, that same dadgum flag hung on my uncle’s casket.It’s the same flag that 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.”The threat by Burchett, who flew with President Trump on Air Force One last week to Tennessee, is an early sign of the intense partisan clashes set to flare at the start of a new Congress, where Democrats are poised to make gains and a cadre of left-wing lawmakers including Chevalier are set to yank the party to the left after winning safe-seat primaries.Burchett said he would make the motion whether R...