In a remarkable feat of rhetorical gymnastics, the leader of New York’s Democratic Party invoked the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan when asked why top party officials hadn’t endorsed a socialist mayoral candidate. India Walton, a Democratic Socialist campaigning for Buffalo’s mayoral seat, won the city’s primary this summer. New York’s Democratic Party, along with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, have yet to announce an endorsement for Walton. Jay Jacobs, the state party’s chairman, was asked in a Monday interview with Spectrum News what kind of precedent the decision not to endorse Democratic nominees like Walton set.

“Let’s take a scenario, very different, where David Duke, you remember him? The grand wizard of the KKK?” Jacobs asked. “He moves to New York, he becomes a Democrat, and he runs for mayor in the city of Rochester, which has a low primary turnout, and he wins the Democratic line. I have to endorse David Duke? I don’t think so.”

He clarified in the next breath that Walton, who is Black, “isn’t in the same category,” but then went on to add, “it just leads you to that question, ‘Is it a must?’ It’s not a must. It’s something you choose to do. That’s why it’s an endorsement. Otherwise they call it something else, like a requirement.”

After the interview clip was posted, Jacobs insisted in an initial statement on the state party’s Twitter account that his words had been taken out of context, apologizing a few hours later. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer condemned Jacobs’ comment, saying, “The statement was totally unacceptable and the analogy used was outrageous and beyond absurd.” Walton’s camp first clapped back at the analogy with a snarky meme, adding later that “if ensuring that every single person has stable housing, clean water, healthy food, good infrastructure, and high quality education is ‘radical’ then I guess so am I.”