Blake Gendebien, a Democrat running to unseat House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik in New York’s 21st District, drew negative attention this week for an AI-generated campaign ad and a contentious exchange during a local television interview.
During the interview, Gendebien was asked about several characterizations he made in a 2013 appearance with the Library of Congress that was later taken offline at his request. In that interview, he claimed, “It’s hard to find one local person that doesn’t have domestic abuse problems, alcohol problems, wage garnishments.”
When pressed on whether the quote sounded like a generalization about his community, Gendebien began to respond, but his consultant, Aziz Yakub, interrupted. “I’m just gonna jump in here. Before we started this, we talked about talking broadly about the campaign. I just want to flag this was not what we talked about at the top,” Yakub declared.
The reporter pushed back, replying, “Nothing is ever off limits in an interview,” and noted that the question was related to a release issued earlier in the week by Stefanik’s senior adviser, Alex DeGrasse, who said:
The desperate Far Left Democrat who made history in the first week of his campaign by hiding his vicious attacks on local correctional officers and pro-illegal amnesty positions now makes history by using sexist, deceitful, and shameful AI imagery smearing Congresswoman Stefanik in a digital ad.
Gendebien tried to regain control of the interview, saying, “Aziz, it’s okay. I’m an open book. Nearly 15 years ago, I was not a politician. I’m not a politician today. I’m a farmer who cares about my community, and I was talking out of frustration at the time.”
Gendebien’s AI-generated video mocking Stefanik led the Office of House Republican Leadership to denounce it as a “blatantly sexist, deep fake attack ad” and urge Governor Kathy Hochul and state Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs to condemn the imagery. “There is no place in politics to artificially create this derogatory degradation,” the office stated, calling the ad “offensive, belittling, and confusing to voters especially seniors.”
In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News, Stefanik’s campaign remarked, “Team Elise has seen many Democrat candidate implosions over the years, but this one tops it all with the hack consultant interrupting a local journalist who was asking the candidate questions live on air. It’s not a question of if this flailing Democrat candidate will lose to a Republican in NY21 next November, it’s whether it’s a wipeout by 20 or 40 points.”
As previously reported by Breitbart News, Gendebien has a history of disparaging the local workforce, calling them “awful” and claiming it would take six local employees to replace three Hispanic workers. He accused local hires of showing up late, drinking too much, or being tied up in “custody battles and child support battles,” and asserted corrections officers “don’t have much self-worth.” He also admitted he didn’t verify whether his workers were legal and once paid $10,000 to bail out a farmhand detained by Border Patrol, explaining he “needed the help.”
