Antonio Reynoso Lied About Attending Tax the Rich Rally in Social Media Post
EXCLUSIVE — After socialists rallied with Bernie Sanders yesterday afternoon in the Bronx to pressure Governor Kathy Hochul to raise income taxes on the wealthy, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso posted online to trick his followers into thinking he was at the lefty love fest.
“Fired up in the Bronx today with @BernieSanders and a whole lot of New Yorkers who are done watching billionaires and mega corporations keep getting richer while working families are left behind,” Reynoso posted on X a few hours after the rally. “We must act now and tax the rich to invest in our communities and build an economy that works for working people.”
But, when a reporter for the Judge Street Journal asked for proof that he attended, a campaign spokesperson admitted that Reynoso was not there.
“He went to Albany to pressure the Governor to take action and will do the same when he gets to Congress,” a spokesperson for the Reynoso campaign told the Journal. “Our campaign was proud to represent him at the rally yesterday.”
Reynoso was playing baseball with his son that day, and had planned ahead of time to send his campaign representatives, he told the Journal over the phone. He said it was his staff’s fault that the post’s phrasing implies he attended the event himself.
“I don’t know what they were thinking,” Reynoso said. “I never said I was going. The campaign knew that. And I don’t think they meant to be misleading, but I read the tweet, and it obviously sounds like there was an impression that I would be going there. “
Reynoso is running a congressional primary against the DSA-backed Assemblywoman Claire Valdez to represent New York’s seventh congressional district—which is often referred to as the Commie Corridor. He has the endorsement of the outgoing incumbent, Nydia Velázquez, but he has struggled to excite the young, socialist voters responsible for the election of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has endorsed his opponent.
Reynoso’s flub comes just five weeks after Streetsblog revealed that his office gave unofficial parking placards to city workers for years—despite publicly pledging to end the practice.
Reynoso presents himself as a progressive. But critics to his left remain suspicious about the authenticity of his politics, and today’s revelation gives them more ammunition to attack on that front.
A spokesperson for Reynoso’s campaign refused to explain why the author of the post worded it to imply that the borough president attended the event.
Valdez has endorsements from the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers.
She appears in several photographs from the event yesterday, sitting with her fellow DSA electeds who serve in the state legislature—including State Senator Jabari Brisport, Assemblywoman Sarahana Shrestha, and City Councilmember Chi Osse.
A frequent refrain of the Valdez campaign is, “Claire was there.”
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