At a press conference announcing Senator Chuck Schumer’s endorsement, Councilman Lew Fidler, who’s campaigning for the New York State Senate, addressed the dust-up over his comments that his opponent, Republican David Storobin, has “ties to skinheads, and neo-Nazi groups and white supremacist group.”
“I want to answer that, and my campaign folks would probably tell me that I shouldn’t,” he began. “I never, ever, ever did, or would have, called David Storobin a neo-Nazi.”
“I’m not so internet savvy … I used the word ‘ties’ instead of ‘links,'” he explained, adding that he “never once raised it in public,” while Mr. Storobin “continues to raise it in public.”
However, his campaign appeared to be strongly, and publicly, doubling down on the comments after they were made at a Brooklyn Young Democrats gathering. They sent out a press release earlier this week entitled, “Councilman Fidler’s Campaign Calls on Mr. Storobin to Come Clean on Ties to White Supremacist Websites.”
“It was a response to a press conference that he held,” Mr. Fidler responded when Politicker brought up the release.
“Again, he’s responding to comments that I made to a group of young Democrats at a bar, where I thought we were in a private room,” he added. “Look, if I was 25, I’m sure I would have used ‘links’ instead of ‘ties,’ I wish I was 25.”
Watch the video of the exchange below:
