Queens state senate candidate joined pro-Trump march on U.S. Capitol
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A photo from Elisa Nahoum’s Senate campaign Facebook page shows crowds on the plaza outside the Capitol Building Wednesday. Photo via Facebook
By David Brand
A Queens Republican who picked up nearly 37 percent of the vote in her 2020 bid to unseat incumbent State Sen. John Liu was among the crowd of far-right Trump supporters marching through Washington D.C. Wednesday in a rally that culminated with a deadly riot inside the U.S. Capitol.
Elisa Nahoum, a sales and real estate agent who ran on the GOP line in Senate District 11, broadcast videos from the march on Facebook Live and posted photos of the crowds on the plaza outside the Capitol. She did not participate in the siege that left five dead, including a Capitol police officer.
Authorities have arrested far-right extremists and white nationalists for their roles in the attack.
But in an interview with the Eagle, Nahoum said she thinks the extremists who smeared feces through hallways, stormed the offices of federal lawmakers and stole various pieces of property were “antifa,” not Trump supporters.
“The ones that went in were antifa,” she said. “The people that broke in were antifa and it’s coming out. It was orchestrated to make Trump look like the bad guy.”
“It was a Democratic plan nationwide to push their New World Order,” she added.
Authorities, however, have arrested far-right extremists and white nationalists for their role in the siege and have not found evidence of leftist “false flag” operations.
Nahoum called the event leading up to the riot a “peaceful rally,” a statement that echoed several posts Wednesday and Thursday on her Senate campaign Facebook page. She said she did not expect anyone to enter the Capitol.
“I didn’t really know because there were so many people there,” she said. “I did see people all the way up on the stairs, but I stayed at a distance because I’m a married woman and I have kids.”
“I didn’t storm into the Capitol. I’m a respectful woman.”
Elisa Nahoum (right) was endorsed by the Police Benevolent Association, led by Patrick Lynch (right). Facebook video.
The march was organized by right-wing activists and encouraged by President Trump to discredit Trump’s resounding electoral defeat.
Nahoum, a Police Benevolent Association-backed candidate, said that police officers were in on the riot and intentionally let the mob through the gates of the Capitol. She previously described that theory in a Facebook post.
“It’s all coming out now but on our usual good media . The people’s videos . Cops were calling people in. Waving them into the capital . It’s on rumble ,” she wrote on Facebook Thursday night. Rumble is a video-sharing website with fewer restrictions than YouTube and popular among the far right.
Facebook photo
Nahoum received 45,400 votes in the Nov. 3 election to represent Flushing, Bayside, College Point, Whitestone, Douglaston and Little Neck. Liu, a Democrat, won with 78,818 votes.
She told the Eagle that she thinks election fraud prevented her from receiving even more votes.
There have been no substantiated claims of election fraud in New York in the 2020 general election.
She also discussed several conspiracy theories popular on the far-right, including the notion that President Barack Obama has lied about his identity and that his real name is Barry Soetoro, that President-elect Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden “should be arrested for raping children” and that billionaire George Soros is a “domestic terrorist.”
Nahoum ran on the Republican, Conservative and Save Our City lines, but has since mourned what she called the demise of the GOP.
“The death of the Republican Party 1/6/2020. I pray for us,and Biden will NEVER BE MY PRESIDENT! Here we go again. Like the eight years wasn’t enough,” she wrote on Facebook Wednesday.
She described her motivation for attending the march in a Facebook video the night before the riot.
“We all know the election was fraud,” she said. “We all know this election was stolen. It’s a very sad circumstance actually.”
Yet, in another video from the march Wednesday, she maintained her faith in the electoral process.
“Dirty Democrats, we’re going to vote them all out,” she said. “And the Republicans you better watch, the ones who don’t support Trump, were going to vote you out too. Simple. Actually Very simple.”
Liu, her election opponent, denounced the pro-Trump “insurrection” in a statement to the Eagle Friday.
“The people of northeast Queens believe in fair play and justice for all. The insurrection in our nation’s capital this week is the complete opposite of the democratic ideals we hold dear. Violence, thuggery, vandalism, desecrating the Capitol, waving confederate flags, assaulting the media —horrific acts like these do not reflect our values,” he said.
