TWO SIDES

Mom of Rubio Canvasser’s Alleged Attacker Insists Politics Had Nothing to Do With It

Diana Rosa Lopez said her son has never even voted.

The mother of a 25-year-old man who’s accused of attacking a 27-year-old as he was canvassing for Marco Rubio told the Miami Herald that politics had nothing to do with the alleged assault—despite the Republican senator’s claims to the contrary. In an interview at her home, the registered Republican said her son, Javier Jesus Lopez, “deserves whatever he deserves” for the fight but “doesn’t know anything about politics.” “He likes fishing,” Lopez told the Miami Herald. “My son has never voted.” The newspaper confirmed that Lopez is not registered to vote in Florida. Police have arrested a second person—27-year-old Jonathan Casanova—for the attack on Christopher Monzon, a former Hialeah City Council candidate who has ties to white supremacy. But cops haven’t determined whether the altercation was motivated by politics, as Rubio claimed in a viral tweet. In Casanova’s arrest report, Monzon said he was told his Republican status meant he couldn’t pass by, while in the other report, Lopez is quoted as telling Monzon, “You can’t pass by here, this is my neighborhood.” At a rally at the John F. Kennedy Library in Hialeah for his campaign against Val Demings, Rubio continued to push that there were four attackers. “Someone wearing a Rubio T-Shirt and a DeSantis hat was walking in a neighborhood not far from here yesterday when four individuals assaulted him, broke his nose, broke his jaw, and gave him internal bleeding,” Rubio said.