Rep. Andy Kim, D-N.J., slammed a Trump delegate for accusing him of wearing the North Korean flag on his tie during a New Jersey Senate debate this week.
“Why is US Senate candidate Andy Kim wearing a North Korea flag on his tie tonight?” the delegate, Mike Crispi, wrote on X about Kim’s matchup Tuesday against Republican opponent Curtis Bashaw. “What is he trying to tell us — Where do his allegiances lie?”
Kim, an Asian American, told NBC News in an email through a spokesperson that he wore the tie, which had red, white and blue stripes on it, simply because it matched his blue suit.
“Not everything in life is a conspiracy,” Kim said about the comments from Crispi, a Republican.
The flag of North Korea features a red star within a white circle set against a wide red stripe, bordered by thinner white and blue stripes.
Kim told NBC News that the tie is one of just a handful he owns. He said he bought it when he graduated from college two decades ago.
Crispi did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
A day after the debate, Crispi posted a followup video to social media, doubling down on his earlier comments. In the video, he questioned Kim’s loyalty and labeled his politics as “communist.”
“My question is, why did Andy Kim wear a tie that had a foreign flag across the middle? … Why didn’t you wear an American flag tie?” Crispi said in the video, adding that the pattern resembled the North Korean and Costa Rican flags. “It resembled other countries, but it didn’t resemble the United States of America. And I ask the question, is Andy Kim even having allegiance to the United States?”
In a lengthy tweet thread the same day, Kim called Crispi’s comments “a disgusting attack,” urging his opponent and other GOP leaders to condemn “this xenophobia.”
He also detailed several other racist attacks on Asian American candidates, including a recent attack on Dave Min, a Democrat running in Orange County, California. Police there recently arrested a 62-year-old in connection to vandalism incidents in which Asian slurs were spray-painted across Min’s campaign signs.
“If elected, I’ll be the first Korean American senator after 120 years of Koreans in America,” Kim wrote on social media. “I’ll be the first AAPI Senator from the East Coast. I’m proud, but yearn for the day when I don’t need to break barriers and I don’t have my love for this country questioned.”
Bashaw condemned Crispi’s accusation shortly afterward, and called Kim a “good man and patriotic American,” despite their policy disagreements.
“As someone who has been stereotyped and on the wrong end of hateful incorrect assumptions my entire life, I wholeheartedly denounce baseless accusations based solely on someone’s background or appearance,” Bashaw wrote on X.
Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., also slammed the accusation in a post on X.
“Dear MAGA @MikeCrispi: That is not the North Korean flag,” Lieu wrote. “Take your racism and shove it.”
