The Breakfast Club - Lee Stelden Talks Getting Attacked On Stage, January 6th, Roe V Wade and More

Episode Date: August 16, 2022

Lee Stelden Talks Getting Attacked On Stage, January 6th, Roe V Wade and MoreSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Wake that ass up early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning, everybody. It's DJ Envy, Angela Yee, Charlamagne Tha God. We are The Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building. He's a candidate for governor of New York 2022. We have Lee Zeldin here.

Good morning. Hey, good morning. It's great to be with you. How are you feeling? I'm feeling great. It's great to be with you guys. Thanks for having me. Yeah, man.

You know, Lee, you're interesting because it seems like you know how to stir things up in a good way. And I guess for some in a bad way. Because you got attacked recently. You and Dave Chappelle got something in common, right? Yeah, where were you? I thought you would come save me. I was up there on the stage all by myself. I don't know what's going on.

You saw what happened over this past weekend. Yeah. Over in Chautauqua County, you have this author who has given a speech, and he gets attacked. He ends up getting stabbed. I sound like a resty. Yeah. Crazy. So I was giving a speech on stage, and someone came up.

And fortunately, there was a whole bunch of people there who were able to jump in and subdue the guy. I'm someone who believes that there's no place for political violence if you want to to support any candidate you want, you should be able to go to a rally. I don't care whether you're the candidate, you're someone on stage, everyone should feel safe. Bring your ideas, your energy. You could disagree. This is America. But, I mean, I was just reminded of it again just a few days ago with what happened with Selma Rushdie.

Do you know what it was that set this guy off? Like, what were you saying? What was the rhetoric that got him like that? So, what was wild? this guy off? What were you saying? What was the rhetoric that got him like that? Well, for one, I was told that he was drinking. So as he's coming up on the stage, I see two things at the same time. One is I see him wearing a hat that says Operation Iraqi Freedom Veteran, which for me means you drop your guard. I couldn't possibly be less on guard when someone says that they're a veteran to me. But at the same time, I'm seeing that he has this, similar to brass knuckles in his hand,

there was a couple sharp pointed edges of it, and so he's lifting his arm up towards me. At the same time that I'm seeing that he's wearing his hat that says he's a veteran. The veteran thing goes out the window when you see brass knuckles. Right. And so when I was younger, and I can thank my mother for this, and one of my former commanders from the 82nd Airborne Division was upset that I wasn't giving my military training enough credit.

But when I was younger, I did karate. So I'm black belt. Taekwondo. Did taekwondo. And one of the things that we did in the training was that someone come at you with a knife towards your face and you step out of the way, you grab the wrist. Some folks in self-defense, they think that if a sharp object comes at you, you should somehow go after that sharp object. Cheat. If you can gain control of their wrist, then you are able to gain control of that knife or whatever they have in their hand.

So just the first thing was just grab his wrist real quick. And like a moment later, seven, eight, nine people all jumped in. But he's a veteran. I'm told that he has some mental health issues. That's most important for me closest to my heart is that there is good, there's a great veteran service agency in Monroe County. Get this guy some help because he clearly is struggling with some stuff. Does that discourage you from even

wanting to continue the campaign? Is it worth it if stuff like that is going to happen? You haven't even won yet. No, not at all. I was actually behind the stage right after this was going on. Someone asked me, are you going to go back on stage? Of course we're going to go back on stage. I had 13 more rallies in 13 counties scheduled over

the next few days, and people were saying, well, are you going to keep doing your rallies? Yeah, we're going to keep our rallies. And security increased a little bit, so the United States Capitol Police, state troopers, local law enforcement, they all have been talking a little bit more than in the past. And the security ramped up the next morning, and we've only actually had one issue, but after that. What happened after that? Last weekend, I was up in Clinton County, and I'm at a bar. It's kind of like a meet and greet with a big group of people,

but the public was there, not just people who were friendlies. So there was a group of four right behind me, and they were drinking, and somebody overheard this guy introduce his 15-year-old son to me. So this woman starts making comments, because I have identical 15-year-old girls, says some things that were inappropriate. And then she starts grabbing my arm a little bit. I'll push away. I move over, and the conversation is like five minutes later.

And I am nowhere near her. She passes by. She's like, get out of my way. She's walking outside, and she just had a crumpled up napkin. She's a foot away, and she throws it and hits the side of my face and walks out. The people I'm talking to are like, what just happened?

Lee, you need security. Yeah, that's true. Lee, I'm starting to think it's you. How long have you had this impact on people, Lee? Well, you know what's wild? So like, you know, we see the stories of members of Congress who there's some type of a threat. And then it makes national news that that person ended up

with some kind of a threat. Every time I read one of those stories, the thing that strikes me is that the public doesn't even realize how many other stories that just never get reported. When stuff happens to me, I don't put a press release. I've had an intruder in my house. I mean, we've had some things happen. We were not there.

During this campaign? Before the campaign, but as a member of Congress. What was that? Well, so the person ended up getting arrested. We have security cameras in the house and he claimed in his defense and he had some prior records which is one of the reasons why law enforcement was able to find him because they recognized

his face through their database he claimed that he was just coming in my house to warm up but from some of the things that were moved around inside of the house and some of that activity, it's hard to believe that he was there just to warm himself up. Was he looking for something in particular, some documents? Was it like the Mar-a-Lago thing with Donald Trump?

I'm not sure, honestly. He just immediately said, I was only in there to warm up. As soon as law enforcement asked the first question he had his story down and uh and that was that but i'll tell you like the list goes on of other crazy things that have happened through the years but it happens to a lot of members of congress on both sides yeah republican democrat doesn't matter and we want people that to step up participate there's a lot of people who serve like they're members of congress and and republicans they might think that democrats all have you know like horns coming out of their head democrats might think you know vice versa

and and actually when you get to know people in congress like we're sitting on the floor of the house of representatives we have conversations where we a lot of us get along very well with each other but what happens it was social media people can show like their worst part of human nature on social media they could do it anonymously then we have to put their real name to it and uh it's it's some evil stuff my daughters they turned they start 11th grade next month they're turning 16 next month they're not yet on social media. Good. Wow. And yeah, so far, so good. And they haven't put up much of a fight on it. But there was one time I was at a local high school not that long ago.

And you were doing some Q&A. And I was getting a little bit of engagement, not much. And then I asked them a question. And I said, my daughters, I think at the time they were like 13. I said, do you have any advice for me as to when my daughters should go on social media? All of them, like their hands go up in the air. Never. They were all saying, do not allow your kids on social media.

And actually some of the kids in that class who were most engaged in that conversation were the kids who might be the ones who are getting targeted with bullying inside of that school. So, I mean, I took it to heart. I mean, I've seen it on social media, so yeah, my daughters are not yet on it. So, safe to say, you know, if you become governor in New York, you're going to loosen up those gun laws for protection purposes. Well, listen, there are two different kinds of people on the streets right now. There's the person who is out there. There's illegal guns.

There's people committing crime after crime after crime. The system has them still out on the streets. It's just not yet working to keep the streets safe. And then there are people who are law-abiding New Yorkers, law-abiding Americans who want to safely and securely

carry a firearm solely for self-defense. I do not look at these two people the same way. So any idea that anybody has to go after any type of gun crimes, and we have a lot of different crimes that we just saw this story that happened with the taxi driver over the weekend and the slashing, we're just talking about Salman Rushdie. There's so many different types of crimes that are being committed. But to the extent that we're talking about gun crimes, a lot of them are getting committed with illegal guns.

And a lot of these people are repeat offenders. And the system is just not working to go after them. So what are you going to do? Because you see a lot of, I don't want to say innocent people, but people trying to defend themselves going to jail, right? Because here you are. You can walk out this station right now, right? looking to rob you you can't defend yourself there's no cops around and then these people do get arrested like you said they come out the next day so what

do you do to change that how do you make new york safer again so i look at three different ways one is the laws the da's the judges okay so uh as far as the laws go, someone would make an argument for cashless bail saying that if you commit a low level offense, you don't have a prior record, you're not dangerous, you're not a flight risk. And the only reason why you would have to stay behind bars is because you cannot afford a hundred dollars in bail. Okay. That's a great example as to somebody who should be released. Now, your two Mexican cartel drug smugglers who a month ago got busted in Inwood with $1.2 million worth of crystal meth, instantly released on cashless bail. I would offer that your argument to create this cashless

bail law is not working if those two Mexican cartel drug smugglers are back out on the streets. I don't feel bad for them if they can't afford their bail, they're bad drug dealers, they're bad businessmen, they're bad criminals. So that's one piece. And there's more to it as far as the laws go. So you believe in cashless bail if it's for a low-level... Judges should have discretion to weigh dangerousness and flight risk, past criminal record, seriousness of the offense,

because in the case like we were just talking about, that person shouldn't be stuck behind bars solely because they can't afford $100 worth of bail. So if they would have had the money and been able to get out on bail, then they should still be able to be released. Well, so there are examples where I don't think that that should be the determining factor is whether or not they can afford $100. But I would say that there are all sorts of cases. Like there was somebody who was released on arson,

re-arrested on cashless bail, re-arrested on a double manslaughter up in Yonkers. There was a person released on cashless bail up in Syracuse who I don't think should have been, who ended up murdering 93-year-old Connie Torrey. What about the guy who attacked you? Because he got let out. Yeah, that's a great example. See, i believe in that case that the judge should have discretion to look at the factors

here now you can actually argue and i i would too that in that particular case you're doing a disservice to that person who had attacked me on stage because uh one he was drunk that's what at least that's what i was told i interacted with him much more in that couple seconds. Uh, and also he had mental health issues. So let's just say, instead of rushing to release him in the middle of the night, I got an email like two 30 in the morning saying he's released. Let's say it's seven 30 in the morning. Next day, Monroe County veteran service agency. As I said earlier, I was, I've been told that they're great. I've interacted with them a little bit. It's 730. You call up the head of the Veteran Service Agency and say, hey, on your way into the office,

do you think you could come to this location? I have this veteran who seems like he's in deep trouble. He may end up getting released here at some point today or tomorrow or the next day. And it would be helpful if you can come in here and interact with him, tell him about some of the services. I'm in my 20th year right now in the Army. I've lost more friends due to PTSD than I have lost friends in combat. And there are veterans who don't realize,

they feel isolated and alone. There's somebody who lives around the block from them who's willing to drop, a stranger, willing to drop everything at a moment's notice at 2 o'clock in the morning to help that veteran in need. The person doesn't realize that. Now, you go to places for help.

Some of these medical providers think that the answer is medication. Just give medication, but that's not the solution here. A peer-to-peer support model, that works. You put veterans with other veterans or someone trained to run that conversation to get them help, to be able to speak anonymously to other people who might be fellow veterans going through what they're going through. There's outside-the-box ways to help. Service animals, fly fishing, training wild horses. heard so many success stories of outside the box, unconventional way, not involving medicine, where veterans are able to deal with their, with the mental wounds of war without getting medicated and, you know, not losing their life, not losing their job, not losing their family.

So I would say like in that particular example, it's a disservice to that veteran that you released him two 30 in the, in the middle of the night night and you don't even know where he's going. I agree. I mean, you have to turn these facilities into actual correctional facilities. They're going to be called correctional facilities. Let's actually try to correct some people. Give them mental health care,

help them get clean, whatever it is. Yeah, and you can't paint everybody with one broad brush. There are people who are on our streets right now who are making a personal decision to be out on our streets. And you could say, hey, listen, there's a shelter to go to, and they're just choosing not to. Maybe they even have a home that they're choosing not to go to. People need help with drug addiction, with alcohol addiction. It's not a one-size-fits-all.

Some people, they're in ninth or tenth grade. They're deciding whether or not to even go to class here that's starting up in a couple of weeks. And the diploma isn't worth enough right now in New York. I believe that a diploma should just be a ticket to a college. A diploma should be a ticket to a good-paying job waiting for you the next day. So that means that in grade school and high school, you get your hands on equipment, you

get experience, you network with local trades unions. And then if you're a ninth or 10th grade, you're deciding whether or not to go to class. If you're saying yourself, I'm not going to college, but you are saying yourself that I have a dream. This is what I want my life to look like. You will have a good paying job waiting for you the next day if you graduate. Now in New York City, we have a lot of poor performing public schools here, but we also have some great schools as well. I want all schools to get better. And I

believe that in New York State, we should lift the cap on charter schools. We should have parents where, especially where your kids stuck in multi-generational poverty, you should have parents, especially when your kid's stuck in multi-generational poverty, you should have access to a better performing school. The education component is part of this as well. And if we want more people riding public transportation, we need to make the streets, the subways safer. And right now, people are telling me stories that they ride the subway and they are holding onto a pole or a guardrail because they're afraid of being pushed in front of an oncoming

subway car. You hear that story from one person, you've heard it from one person too many. And right now that's a reality. And while some people out there are like, hey, I feel safe on the subways. There's no issue. Well, in a way, as far as ridership goes it's subjective and if somebody else does not feel safe and they're not riding the subway because they do not feel safe well then you have an issue to deal with so why should people vote for you I believe that our state's head in the wrong direction right now so we lead the entire country in population loss and you need to be able to answer the question if you want to lead if you want to be the governor of the state of New York you need to be able to answer the question if you want to lead if you want to be the governor of the state of new york you have to be able to finish the

sentence new york state leads the entire country in population loss because now i believe that people are hitting their breaking point because they look at these other states and they feel like their money will go further they will feel safer they will live life free or elsewhere people go in the carolinas and tennessee and florida and texas and elsewhere and they feel like their their wallets are being attacked their safety their freedom and people are being put out of work for a personal decision whether or not to get the covid vaccine if you want to get it get it if you don. If you don't want to get it, don't get it, but don't do it because I, as governor, call on you to be my apostle. You're not there to serve me. Public service is about you being there to serve the public. I want people to feel like they're back in control of their government again. And I think that right now for too long, it's been

this churn in Albany where we keep electing a governor and lieutenant governor for a four-year term and then four years later they're not there because they end up having to resign and there's scandal and there's arrests there indictments so this crazy thing happens in every other state like all across the entire country you elect a governor and lieutenant governor of a four-year term and then four years later they're still there and we should try that New York for once. I think it's a factor that people are losing pride and faith in the government here. I believe that we should have balance. This isn't about Republican versus Democrat.

As New Yorkers, I feel like our state's heading in the wrong direction. And that there are common sense ways to be able to survive life in New York better. There should be more opportunity. And right now it's just that the people are there just not getting the job done. Can I ask you this about, because you are running as a Republican, correct? That's correct. And so you were trying to run as an independent at first. Is that what happened when you were trying to get enough? Well, so I've been running on the Republican line and the conservative line. And, I mean, that's where it's going to be head-to-head between myself and Governor Hochul. She's running on the Democratic line

and the Working Families Party line. But there was, in New York, there used to be all different kinds of third-party lines. Right, we don't normally have just one-on-one. That's right. This is the first time in a really long time it's a one-on-one that's right this is like the first the first time in a really long time it's a one-on-one and there was a petition process that took place a few months ago where people were collecting petitions for the Green Party and the Libertarian Party and this party and in that party and actually at the end of the process, the only four parties that are on the ballot for

November are the four parties that were previously on the ballot. So I believe that this threshold that exists right now is of how many signatures are needed clearly is not the right number. And this is something that Governor Cuomo had enacted previously when he was in office, raising the threshold, the amount of signatures that you need. I think it would be good to be able to have more third parties running and allow people to have their voices and have them on stage for the debates and to bring their ideas and their perspective. Again, it shouldn't just be about Republican versus Democrat. I agree.

I think most people, the general public agrees, too, that they want another option other than Republican and Democrat. But, you know, Governor Hochul accused your campaign of submitting 14,000 fake signatures to run on the independent party line. What was that about? Yeah, no, our campaign had added photocopies. Now listen, photocopies get made of petitions. I mean, every time that we've done petitions through the years, I've run every two years, photocopies have been made of petitions. So photocopies got in with the stack.

But what I was told from internally is that our campaign did not make any photocopies got in with the stack but uh what i was told from internally is that our campaign did not make any photocopies and uh we were not aware of photocopies being submitted until after the fact you know uh you you blasted uh uh governor holtz for supporting the inflation reduction act can you can you explain to people you know what what the act is and why why you're against it yeah so unless i i was voting against bills when it was, I've had four terms in Congress. I've had a Democratic president, Republican president, Democratic president. I've seen Republican control, Democratic control mix. In four terms, I've had four different alignments as far as balance of power. And I have had issues in all

the different alignments of power, even when it's all Republicans, when these appropriations bills are coming up, because as I mentioned earlier, I have 15-year-olds, they have a generation, none of them can vote, and they end up having to bear the burden of these decisions that are being made right now. We are spending money that we do not have. Hasn't America always done that, though? Yeah, and it's not good. It's bad that it keeps getting worse and worse.

So there are people who wake up today and they're like, alright, well, what's the next trillion dollar bill that we're going to pass? We just passed last week hundreds of billions of dollars. What's the next trillion dollar bill? That's a lot of money. Million, billion, trillion for some people, like the MBT, whatever. It's just

the same, same. But trillion dollars, that's a lot of money. And there are people who want to, they're in Congress. They want to pass, you know, trillion dollar bill after trillion dollar bill. But what happens is in many cases, sometimes these bills come up and we're voting on them and no one's read them. A 2,700 page bill, you know, spending $15 trillion dollars and nobody has any idea what's in it and and then you know we're taking heat because you know whether you're voting yes or no listen if you're voting no because you say you haven't read it you don't even know what's in it

that's a pretty fair reason so if we were to have our government actually work for us we would have a and it's an appropriation process that would, by the end of the fiscal year, which federally, that's the end of September. We would, at the end of September, have a budget for the entire fiscal year,

but that's not what happens. We get to the end of the fiscal year and they pass something called a continuing resolution, a CR short term. Then they pass another one. Then they'll pass another one. And then finally they'll pass a bill. You know what they'll do, oftentimes, is it's

right before Christmas, and members of Congress want to go back to their families, whatever they have planned, so they end up passing a bill that they just add everything in it. So you're sitting around a table, and, you know, Charlemagne Thaumat has his

request, and DJ Envy has his request, and Angela Yee has her request. We all have our asks, and someone at the table has a bright idea. Yes, yes, yes, yes to everything, what everybody asked for, and you just add it all to the bill. That's not necessarily responsible, just to add what everyone's asking for. So anyway, the Inflation Reduction Act was passed last week. This is hundreds of billions of dollars of new spending, new taxes,

they're talking about a whole lot more, tens of thousands of additional IRS agents, and I feel like right now this is something, one, that it's not going to actually reduce inflation. I would argue that it's going to have an impact of increasing inflation.

I just feel like this isn't what the American public really wants once you read what's actually in the bill. But what is actually in the bill? Because I thought that it was going to be taxing these large corporations, but not the average American, not the everyday American that makes less than $400,000. But then I thought it was really about climate change and trying to make sure that we actually make the environment better for the future.

And we should make the environment better for the future. As far as low and medium-sized businesses, they get caught up in the tax increase as well. So the tax increases, the highest profile, biggest components of the tax increases, the highest profile, biggest components of the tax increase are catching up employers of all sizes. Now, some people just like to vilify employers, but if there were no employers, then where would we all be able to work? There's a lot of employees that like their job. But there are some huge corporations that should be paying taxes.

They get all these tax breaks. Yeah, but the largest, the highest profile piece of it, the 15% booking tax, that's something that is catching up a lot of businesses of all different kinds of stripes. And that's just something

where when you play out the consequences of it it ends up getting getting passed down so whether it's the decision to be able to hire more people it's competitiveness with other countries it's uh the ability to be able to price less for for goods now you come up with great examples of some business out there that's making a fortune and you're saying they you know they saying they're making all of this money. And not paying any taxes. Right, right. But the issue with the taxes that they had created

are taxes that are catching up all different kinds of businesses in there. And I'm not someone who just wants to vilify all these businesses. Like, for example, I remember when Amazon was going to come to Queens, and there was this big fight. And that was 25,000 good-paying jobs. Now, I happen to be on the side of that particular back and forth where I believe that those good-paying jobs would have been great for New York, and they ended up going down to Virginia.

And there are other businesses that might think about moving to New York and they're deciding not to come here because, hey, if you're treating that company that way, I don't know how you're going to end up treating me. So they end up moving to some other state. So I do believe that we should be improving the business culture. It's not to hold the water of businesses. It's about the people. Like New York right now, they're pushing to change the overtime threshold for farms. It's a big, big thing for New York. We have a lot of farms. A lot of people don't realize that.

Now, one might think that if you are working long hours on a farm, that you should be paid overtime. Right now, the threshold is 60 hours. What happens if you reduce it to 40 hours? You might think, oh, this is good. If you're working more than 40 hours, everyone else is working 40 hours, and threshold is 60 hours. What happens if you reduce it to 40 hours? You might think, oh, this is good. If you're working more than 40 hours, everyone else is working 40 hours, and it's hard work. They should get overtime. But what ends up happening for the New York farm is that they have stated that if you go forward and do this, then I am going to close down. So there are farmers who are saying, I can't afford that.

The overtime, right? The overtime. And then there are employees, too, who are saying that, I mean, they're chasing hours and work. They want to make money. They came here. They're here in our country just to work. They're saying that they're going to go chase work in other states. So I'm someone who likes to look at how the impact of a particular policy ends up playing out. And if it's something that is going to end up hurting at all, so many small and medium-sized employers who are struggling to survive. I mean,

it's a big leap of faith to start your own company. It's not easy. You put your sweat equity in it. Maybe you have five employees, maybe you have 50 employees, you have a hundred employees and you build it up. And a lot of New York businesses end up leaving, they go to other states. But the other piece that was in that bill that had a problem with was all this added money to the IRS. And I just, they don't need no more money. They're just,

they, they don't need to be going after hard working Americans. And there was one estimate from one treasury report that the amount of money that was going to go to the IRS was going to end up resulting in this massive increase in the amount of money that was going to go uh to the irs was going to end up resulting in this massive increase in the number of agents and now all of a sudden there's a dispute on just how many new irs agents we're getting you know one person says 20 000 someone else says 87 000 lord have mercy so that's a component of the bill too and i'll tell you something else that's interesting is like you know you're mentioning environment. Like we should be able to deal with these different issues individually.

The one thing that's crazy about government is that you have all different types of priorities. And the only way to get something over the finish line is to put it all into one bill. And the other thing that bothers me is when you give the bill a name and then people, they don't even read the bill. And they're like, oh like oh well this bill is called the you know inflation reduction act so now if you don't vote for it then you're against reducing inflation yeah exactly but what did you agree with this in the bill well you know that's a good that's a good question i um you know i i would say that it is important to be able to provide that type of help for these environmental issues. It's important to be able to provide help to any, you could point out one struggling American,

one person who might receive any type of a benefit, and that's good. But I'll tell you, I had a pretty big problem with this one. There are a lot of bills that come out that might be controversial that I have some problems with but maybe I like half of it and I dislike half of it. This was a bill I was pretty much against

this one. Wow, even the stuff that would help for climate change and things like that? And using more solar power and going green with cars and rebates. In New York, for example, I'm someone who believes in all of the above and an approach to energy. I represent Brookhaven National Lab. We have the

ARPA-E mission right now. They're investing in research for clean and green technology. That's good. Now, part of the all of the above strategy, in my opinion, I support what New York, we sit on the Marcel strategy, in my opinion, I support what New York, we sit on the Marcellus and Utica shales, not here, but the southern tier and some other counties.

And New York is the only state that bans tapping into this energy source. So I believe that we should reverse the state's ban on the safe extraction of natural gas in the southern tier and some of these other places. Now, some of these other states tapping to the same resource, same shell, named after two New York towns, a lot of what the fear-mongering was of why this ban should have got put in place isn't actually playing out in these other states. I believe that we should reverse the ban. If you want to have natural gas from your home, have natural gas from your home.

If you want to have solar panels on your home, put solar panels on your home. Now, as far as solar panels go, they're expensive. But some people, their house, the way it's located, the roof, it's facing the sun, perfect candidate. They want to make the investment. They should be able to. And that investment is important. And get rebates for it, too? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. Because some people can't afford it otherwise. And get rebates for it, too? Now, if you're just the average New York City resident, well, then you end up bearing the brunt of this policy coming from government, whether you agree with it or not. But you need energy for your home. Your array is struggling enough to make ends meet. So people shouldn't be blocked from being able to access solar if they want to access solar just because they can't afford it. If you want to go drive an electrical vehicle, that's your personal decision. If somebody else wants to drive another vehicle that's not electric, that's their personal decision.

And there are reasons for both. But I'll tell you right now, a lot of these electric vehicles that people want are far more expensive than some of these other gas-powered vehicles that are available so the idea of like okay this would be good if we just get everyone into electric i get the by 2030 though right because i mean there is a process but we have been seeing a lot of things

happening because of climate change so it is something important that has to be addressed yeah so in the future yeah and new york's been interesting because a lot of the rest of the state, when you go away from New York City, is very carbon neutral, carbon free. The rest of New York State has been trending very much in the right direction. Not so much in downstate. If you oversimplify upstate versus downstate, which is an oversimplification because we have 62 counties, we have a bunch of different regions. Around the rest of the state, they are pretty green. And we have an area in and around New York City, and I represent a congressional district on Long Island, and we have these suburban counties just north of New York City, our area downstate has a real issue as it relates to carbon emissions. And we need to do our part, absolutely. But the push right now is to statewide ban all gas hookups on new construction statewide as quickly as possible. And I don't personally support that

because you already have on their own, both residents and businesses all doing their parts in all these other parts of this state, being able to be self-sustaining, being environmentally friendly. Now, if you push, you say you want more windmills. Hey, there's a difference between windmills in Lake Erie and Lake Ontario and having windmills in, say, the middle of Atlantic Ocean.

One's saltwater, one's freshwater. One's an aquifer you rely on for your drinking water. Maybe you have questions with regards to what happens when that lake freezes. And because that lake has frozen, you have a de-icer how does that impact the aquifer also what happens with that windmill long term because apparently you know you can't just you know recycle it into a whole bunch of different pieces and then reuse it for a new windmill now what happens is with this conversation is that people get into their corners and they're like, all right, well, I'm pro wind and you're anti wind and you just don't even talk to each other. I'm pro solar,

you're anti solar. I'm for natural gas, you're anti natural gas. I'm for nuclear. You're not for nuclear. And they're just not talking to each other. So I'm a member of the Bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus in D.C. Republicans and Democrats working together to try to find common ground. Every year, Georgetown University ranks all 435 members of Congress, or members of the House of Representatives, based on how bipartisan they are.

Out of 435, last year that I was ranked was 19. The year before that was 12. They're like, well, how is that possible? You stand up for what you believe in. You all stand up for what you believe in too. That doesn't mean that if you were a member of Congress that we can't find common ground to work together on stuff. And the environmental issues-

Even now, in this era? Like with the GOP being full of white supremacists and fascists? Oh gosh, no, no way. I mean, come on. I'm not going to say all of them, but it's very heavy. I would say this. If you and I were sitting down right now and our job was to figure it all out, I'm pretty sure that we could shock the world in how quickly we can get a lot of this figured out.

I'm sure. But you have to admit that there's a lot of people in the GOP who are openly, openly championing white supremacy. Listen, there's no room for any type of hate in any in i don't care what party you are i don't care what state you're from um you're you're you can have your opinions uh you can have your beliefs in our country you we could debate we could disagree we're talking about that earlier where crosses the line is when it ends up being a raw and sometimes even violent hate. It ends up being something that is tearing down our country. Right now, we have, on the streets of New York, I talk to people who are Jewish New Yorkers, who wear yarmulkes, who are afraid of being hit because they're Jewish. There are, I mean, the Asian American community, they had one of their own, and I have an Asian American wife, and it's close to home for my family, but they had one of their own pushing from an oncoming subway car and killed somebody else was stabbed to death in their apartment in lower Manhattan someone else was beaten to death on street Sikh cab drivers getting hit and we saw we're just talking earlier about the taxi driver

but we don't know enough about what caused that particular act with that particular violence to be honest the the hate that I am most motivated always to tackle is whenever you see it manifest in violence. And I don't care where it's coming from. I don't care if it's coming from right, left, center. I don't care if it's political or non-political. Right now in Congress, there are people who very much disagree on a lot of different issues. You can't cross a line. I don't care who you are. I don't care where you're from. I don't care how important you are or how important you think you are. There's a line that you cannot cross when your position ends up promoting hate that is tearing down the country. Now, by the way,

sometimes just a view on an issue might be viewed as tearing down a country. And there's people with good positions on both sides of the issue. I'll tell you this, though, about my colleagues in Congress. And there's 435 members of the House of Representatives. There's this thought that when we're all on the floor of the House of Representatives, that our swords come out and we are killing each other. Actually, we all get along really well. There's some people who don't get along well with others. Sometimes it's Republican on Republican. Sometimes

it's Democrat on Democrat, sometimes Democrat and Republican. But what's, what's different is that when I'm, if I'm doing a radio interview on the breakfast club and you asked me about a particular person on a particular topic, I might tell you exactly what I feel about that person's position on that particular topic, but I don't hate that person. And what happens is that people are listening to us. And by the way, you could have, you could then, maybe you ask that Democrat to come on, like, hey, what do you think about, what do you think about Lee Zeldin and then this particular issue? And he or she is telling you something where they disagree with me and they're passionate about it but that doesn't mean that that he or she hates me but what happens

is out there especially when it gets magnified on social media and people start piling on and they're especially when elections get closer is that it ends up tearing families apart we're like they can't go to a thanksgiving meal together you know but people who We're like, they can't go to a Thanksgiving meal together. People who are coworkers, they can't talk to each other because of their political viewpoints. And they think that we in Congress are doing the same thing, fighting with those around us, just like you're fighting with that sister or that brother in your own darn family. I think you can admit that you know this this this iteration of the republican party the trumpers so to speak this wasn't the

conservatives that we knew eight years ago or maybe it wasn't now they just are more you know willing to be open with their blatant white supremacy i mean even what happened at the capitol i can't imagine that people still have to go there and work beside people who might have been willing to be open with their blatant white supremacy. I mean, even what happened at the Capitol, I can't imagine that people still have to go there and work beside people who might've been. Well, I'll tell you the violence has no place inside the Capitol. I don't care whether it's a day before an election or it's a day after an election. I don't care if it's that violence in the Capitol, it's violence at a campaign rally. I don't care where you are.

At any point in American history, past, current, future, you elect people to represent you on the floor of the House of Representatives. So January 6th, every four years, the House meets to certify results of an election. Every single time that a Republican has won the presidency over the course last few decades, Democrats have been on the floor of the House of Representatives and they have debated their objections to the election. That's the way the process should go. If somebody has a debate, you do that through your representative.

You don't crack a window of the Capitol. You don't come in, start hurting law enforcement, stealing laptops, breaking things. Threatening people. Yeah. That part of this is disgusting. It has no place ever in our country, regardless of your politics. But a GOP president, you know, he stirred that up so i mean listen there are followers of of president trump who in many respects that day took matters very much into their their own hands i mean they

they went in the capitol they were violent they were not working through their elected representatives they were not peaceful and patriotic. You think Donald Trump should have spoke up sooner to try to calm the situation down? You know, I honestly don't. As far as the timeline of how things play out behind the scenes. You think Trump should go to jail? For what? I mean, for what he said, espionage.

I don't. Getting rid of government records, obstruction of justice. Related to what they did last week. So, so far, I mean. Inciting a riot, inciting an insurrection. I don't believe that. You don't think he incited an insurrection? No, I don't believe he should go.

Well, first of all, a couple things. First off, I don't believe that he should go to prison. Really? I don't. Well, I mean, the thing is, like, I was asking on what charge, and I don't believe that he has committed a crime that he should go to prison on. Damn, so causing an insurrection in this country isn't worth jail time? Well, so if we were to go, like, really start, you know, legalizing the way that, you know,

an insurrection is defined in in my opinion under the united states legal definition of an insurrection that does not meet the elements of of an insurrection um but uh but violation of the espionage act so yeah so you mentioned last week um it's interesting because the so so President Obama, for example, he comes out of office and there are millions of records that, you know, that he takes with him. President Bush, uh, President Clinton, President Bush before him, President Reagan, and they had their libraries and they, uh, you know, you put your information inside of, uh, inside of your libraries.

Presidents, by the way, have the ability to declassify. So the, the most, here's the most fundamental question that I need an answer to in order to be able to answer what you're asking me is I don't know what they took. Right. So that's, that's first and foremost. Um, the fact that, that president Trump would have his records from the White House that he would take from him, presidents do that. President after president after president. By the way, they continue to get security briefings. They continue to be protected by Secret Service. The fundamental question is, what did you take?

Did they request those documents back, though, and he just didn't return them? So I don't know the details on that. I saw that I know that the the request was made for the search warrant to be released so that the information of the search warrant can get out there. I'll tell you that there's there's a lot more questions than answers right now on it. And I don't like the idea that let's say president Biden, you know, he leaves office and then the next president, let's just say he's followed by a Republican president. Hypothetically, I don't like the idea that the next justice department will then go into president Biden's home and collect all of these documents. the fundamental question that we do not have an answer to is what documents did they take?

But they wouldn't do that if they didn't think they had a reasonable call. You think this is political? Yeah, my understanding is that they were asking for these documents back and he wasn't trying to give them back, and that was a last resort. I'm worried that there is a political element to this. Why though? Because trump's not running i mean well 2024 maybe but yeah exactly i mean he he may and there's people who strongly dislike him there are people who are involved in this process some some people who who may be supportive of signing off on this,

who do not like President Trump. But again, I can't tell you what... I can't draw conclusions off of the documents and why they would get the documents without knowing exactly what those documents are. Would you support him if he ran in 2024? I believe that... Well, first off, he's got to make a decision whether or not he's going to run.

If he runs in 2024, I believe that he has a good chance of being the Republican nominee. We'll see who else decides to run. To be honest with you, my focus has been on 2022. I'm running for governor of New York, November 8th of 2022. I'm not thinking about 2024. That's a decision maybe the president ends up making post-election. Maybe it's a decision he makes pre-election. But, you know, if you were to play that out, there's a lot of talented Republicans who can run. There's a lot of talented Democrats who can run. And, you know, 2024 feels like a lifetime right now away because I'm spending all weight every day, every minute of every day focused on this race. And quite honestly, as I travel around the state and I ask New Yorkers, what are your most important issues? What do you want me to be focused on? The top two issues that I hear about are crime and the economy. What do you think? What about the black community, the minority community,

blacks and browns, right? You talked about your Asian community. You talked about Jewish community. What about our community? What's your thoughts on our community? Yeah. So speaking of which, I'm glad Angela's not holding it too much against me, but my daughter was one of the judges at the Jamaican Jerk Fest a couple of weeks ago. And I'm not going to mention how that ended up playing out. I thought there was a lot of talents on your plate that day at the celebrity cook-off. He asked you about black people, and that's what comes to your mind? No, no, no. Jamaican jerk chain?

No, I was just saying, we were together at the Jamaican Jerk Fest a couple weeks ago with Angela in Jamaica. Terrible segue. No, no, no. Well, that's when I was with Angela in Jamaica together. No, no, no. The only reason I ask is because earlier you talked about Asian community, and you talked about the Jewish community.

No, no, no. I understand. But I feel like our community always gets left out. Well, no, that's what I'm saying. Like, the most important thing is to show up. So, you know, like, for example, that's one of the examples is, you know, a couple weeks ago we were together. And it was an amazing turnout. I don't know how many folks were there.

Maybe like 15, 17, 18, 20,000 people showed up in Queens for that event. I was at, a few days back, the National Night Out back in Southeast Queens, sitting down with black pastors and their first ladies in Sunnyside. I was in Harlem just a few days back the national night out back in southeast queens sitting down with black pastors and their first ladies in sunnyside i was in uh harlem just a few days ago actually doing a press conference um we were we're in that community multiple times i remember i had a debate it was juneteenth and they were asking me like what are you going to do to show up and work with the black community so actually i just came here from harlem that day. I co-chair the Congressional Caucus on Black-Jewish Relations. I created the caucus with John Lewis, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Deborah Lawrence, and Will Hurd. The relationship between, and I'm Jewish, I believe that the relationship between a Jewish community and a black community

is historically misunderstood. You have had rabbis and other Jewish leaders marching with Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders and liberating concentration camps in World War II. An all-black battalion was the most decorated battalion going the furthest east and liberating Duns Kerchkin. So the relationship is misunderstood. The most important thing, if you want to earn someone's support, is to show up

and to be able to talk to them about the issues that matter most. But if you think about what we were talking about earlier, from education, kids stuck in multigenerational poverty, stuck in poor-performing schools, they should have access

to that high-quality charter school. They should be able to get a higher-quality education than they're getting right now. To stay in school, to be able to succeed in life, have a good paying job waiting for them after they go. I believe that, you know, as far as the system goes, we were talking earlier about one veteran who was released too early. There are, there are people who they end up getting caught on the wrong end of the law and that the the system itself kind of keeps them trapped in

in that and it's a it's it's a pipeline to prison inside of our schools that's what you know it has been spoken to me about the concern about some of these schools we know all of this already like you're saying yeah i haven't heard you say what you're going to do yeah well that's the reason why a lot of us are politicians because we we because we know all this already. Education is important. But how do we fix these problems? You know, minorities can't get homes, right? Because we can't get loans. And then if we do get homes and we try to sell our homes, we're in the lowest interest rate because we're black.

You know, our education is messed up. We know we can't get books. We can't get supplies. You know that they pull us over way more than anybody else. You know, the marijuana, we've been affected by marijuana and cannabis the most, and it's harder for us to get a license for marijuana and cannabis. So it gets to the point where how do we help? You know what I mean?

And I get it. You judge Angelique's Jamaican test, but that doesn't help us. You've been to Harlem. That's great. What's the legislation? So for one, I mean, for one, I do think it's important to show up because a lot of people are not showing up. So people don't feel represented. They don't feel heard because elected officials and candidates, both parties, don't even show up.

So that is important. Education, I think, is most important. They show up when it's election time. Everybody shows up at election time. They definitely do. Well, that's a problem. It is. Right.

It's election time. So the second piece is I really feel like education is the most important piece of this. It is. It's not easy. Looking at the glass half full, I had four parents growing up. So I guess, hey, that's better than maybe having two. Having a good paying job, waiting for you so you can afford to survive and that you can live the dream. Affordable housing. Affordable housing is important. Right now there are people who want to invest in more affordable.

They want to build more affordable housing. And they have the capital to build a project. They could build a project in New York, or they could go build a project with that money in some other place somewhere else. And somewhere else, it's going to take them nine months or 12 months or 15 months. And here, maybe it's going to end up taking them three years or four years or five years. So I feel like the red tape right now is one of the biggest impediments of getting people to invest their capital and to build more affordable housing. Number one is education. And by the way, you can't underestimate the power of prayer and faith in people's lives. That is important as well. A lot of people are feeling their religious freedom under attack. That's a piece of encouraging people to go find God in their lives. And I'm Jewish. Whatever your faith is.

As far as government goes, we need our streets to be safe. We need to support law enforcement. Speaking of that, when you talk about crime, give me some ways to reduce crime without putting more money into the police department. Without putting more police officers on the street and putting more money in the police departments. How would you reduce crime in these in these areas? We need district attorneys to do their jobs. We need judges to do their jobs.

And the the the laws that are getting passed right now are a disservice not just to law abiding New Yorkers, but also to criminals. You said you would fire Alvin Bragg first thing if you were elected. I believe that he's not doing a good job. I believe that from the first day, he's refusing to enforce laws across the board. It was in his day one memo, and he's continued that since. And by the way, you know what I would do? Is instantly come to the mayor of New York City, to the local community leaders. And it's not about, hey, send me a name of someone who's an ally of mine.

Send me a name of someone who's a Republican. We're talking about Manhattan. We're talking about New York County. You could send me 10, 20 names. The only requirement is to do your job. And Alvin Brad, the way it ends up playing out, a couple weeks ago, you end up having this 16-year-old. He was just committed a violent robbery. He gets released. gets in a fight with the the officer in the subway a

lot of people saw the video the 16 year old thought that he had the uh the right to jump the turnstile now this interesting issue though so the man the man hen d.a says that he's not going to enforce that law now here's the thing If you want to change the law, you then change, you know, you say, okay, there are people who can't afford public transportation. They need to be able to get onto the subway to get to work or go to school. That person needs to have access to public transportation, but not in a situation where he's being charged or she's being charged. And they feel like the only way to get onto that service is to jump the turnstile. So what happens is they get in a fight, right? At the end of the fight, the 16-year-old ends up back in front of the judge

and is asking if he can press charges against the officer and was instantly released back out on the street. That whole process, in my opinion, from the 16-year-old committing the violent robbery, put right back out on the street, gets whole process, in my opinion, from the 16-year-old committing the violent robbery, put right back out on the street, gets into a fight with the officer, right back out on the street again, this is a very important age to be able to actually help these kids out. So I feel like you asked me about Alvin Bragg, and Bragg didn't ask for any type of bail when the violent robbery was committed. He had the day one memo to turnstile jumping.

He gets released right back out on the street after the assault of the cop. Bragg with the Jose Alba case. I mean, Jose Alba ends up in Rikers Island, slapped with a murder charge. He has an open stab wound, and Bragg asked for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bail on on alba and that was wrong uh so i i feel like i feel like brag is not approaching his job right he's refusing to enforce the laws and i would and i want him removed and the one thing i was going to say as far as the policies that are currently on the books that i believe are a disservice not just to law-abiding citizens but also to people who are on the other end of the law.

He's like, you take cashless bail, for example, if if you instantly release somebody back out on the street as quickly as possible, as in like you can't even take a few more hours to get this done. You're you're inside of the local police precinct. The officer is capable of doing more than just process your paperwork. If the system was working, you'd have a stronger community relationship between law enforcement and local community, stronger relationship between law enforcement and local help. If the person is a drug addict, then help make a handoff, get them help for the drugs.

If that person is an alcoholic, that you're able to help make the handoff. If you were going to release them and they're going back out on the street, then the services have to be available to get that person a roof over their head. But here's the other thing too, by the way. I agree with all of that. People think that success for shelters

is to build a shelter to put a roof over someone's head. And then that's it. Like politicians high-five each other and are like, hey, this is great. We just happened to build a shelter to put a roof over someone's head. And then that's it. Like politicians high five each other and are like, hey, this is great. We just happened to have a ribbon cutting. There's a new shelter. Success is getting somebody out of a shelter. It's that somebody gets into the shelter and you're working with them so that they were able to live an independent life and they're not relying on that shelter.

They're not stuck on on that shelter they're not real they're not stuck in in a low income like they people who who are they have a plight now in 2022 because of the system that's in place right now they will be stuck in the same exact plight in 2032 and 2042 maybe along the way they will have a kid and the kid will be stuck in the same plight that they will you don't get them help with their drug addiction. Well, maybe their kid who's like, cause that woman's pregnant. That kid is being born into literally being born into it. I'm glad that you say that because I wish politicians, Democrats and Republicans were as tough on poverty as they are on crime. I wish they were as tough on lack of opportunity as they are on crime. Cause a lot of times you can prevent a 16 year old from even being a person who needs to commit a crime if he

has opportunity from the time he's born, if his schools were better, if they were, you know, trade schools to teach them something that they can actually go get a job and be productive in this society. I think that they're too busy punishing the criminals, criminals, that they're not coming up with solutions for the poverty. They'll never have them opportunities because they don't care. Like you talked about earlier about Amazon, right? And you're saying that you thought it would be a great idea if they moved to Queens, right?

Now, think about it. They moved to Queens. They're creating $25,000 jobs. That's a great thing. No, no, $25,000, like the average job is like a little over 100. All right, creating jobs, right? But my problem is we're rewarding them for being billionaires.

That's a billion-dollar company. And we're saying, hey, billion-dollar company, you come here. You ain't got to pay no taxes where they're making billions and billions of dollars. But now you have Joe over here who's a minority who's trying to open up a juice bar who pays more taxes in his juice bar in Brooklyn than Amazon does. Then he can't survive. Now, Amazon, who's a company that's making billions of dollars being that Jeff Bezos buying yachts and planes or whatever he does I'm happy for him but he's paying no taxes right and not even like he would be paying 40% or 50% he probably paying like 20% so this is uh

so that's all true and what happens in your name for being a billionaire so in in New York this is what we do wrong, is that they have taxes on these businesses in New York. And then what they do is they give out these grants and these tax breaks, and they pick winners and losers. And the playing field is not level. Not at all. They have something called Regional Economic Development Councils, where if you have a network, if you have connections, if you know who to call, you can get your hand on grants. And if you have a great idea and you don't have the access, then you don't get the grant. So if you have a level playing field where you just have a lower tax base across the board, not picking winners and losers, and then instead of taking that money

to give it to people who you're playing favorites with, then you won't even be in that situation. What you should be able to do is say, this is New York City. You want to be in New York City. We have the highest quality education. We have safe streets. You're living close to the, for morale of your employees, you get to live in the greatest city in the history of the world, or you get to commute at least to the greatest city in the history of the world. But the problem is, is that all the other policies combined you you are we're losing out on these other selling points and we're stuck where we feel like you have to give out the breaks in order to rope them in so i would say that we're approaching this all backwards um but we need to if you're going to say we don't want to give those tax breaks it's one thing to say we

want your business we want you to come here we want to figure this out we want your 25 000 good paying jobs but we don't want to give you these tax breaks unfortunately the way this ended up playing out was we don't want you and i think that ends up sending a mess well i know that it sent a message to other businesses as well saying, if you don't want them, you don't want those jobs, then I'm not going to come to your state. I'm going to go somewhere else. There was a distributor on Long Island. The state of Kentucky offered them to move them to Kentucky to give them property, no taxes. They put this whole package together on top of it. They were going to rename the town

after the distributor. Their complaint was at the time, this is a few years ago, that they weren't getting a return phone call back from Albany. The culture right now is one where we view these employers as the enemy. Now we can have our own opinion on policy. You could say, it's not fair that this really successful business is getting a ton of tax breaks, and they're not paying their fair share. I understand that argument. But what we need to make sure is how we approach what is the right policy, that we don't create a culture where we're sending a message to the employers we don't even want them. They have the power. Pretty much.

Yeah. I got two more questions before we get out of here um one is just like in general because if if somebody's not held accountable for the attempted coup of this country on january 6th how can we you know uh ensure that'll never happen again and and who do you think should be held accountable well i mean there there's been the criminal justice systems come down uh pretty hard on a lot of people who were inside of the Capitol. There are people who are still jailed. I'm talking about the members of Congress who may have assisted the president. Like, you got to get the big fish.

So there were members of Congress who had issues with certain aspects of the way, without getting too far sidetracked on it, there were, in 2020, we had a pandemic. And in states, there were people who were not the state legislature who were changing how the election was going to get administered. So in the United States Constitution, it says that the state legislature of every state

determines how the election is going to be administered so in the name of the pandemic these different states had non-state legislative actors determining how they were going to change the administration law so you're in wisconsin by the way however you feel on voter id or signature verification in wisconsin there's a law for both so some elections commissioner commissioner in Wisconsin was advising his constituents in that county how to get around the state's voter ID and signature verification law. You can't do that. In Pennsylvania, the secretary of state entered into a friendly lawsuit with the League of Women Voters just before the election to change how the election was administered in Pennsylvania. If you want to do this stuff, you have to go through the state legislation for permission of it.

Now, if you're a member of Congress and you have something that you want to debate on the floor of the House of Representatives on January 6th of 2021, 2017, 2025, whatever, that's the place that that is done. It's part of, it happened when I first got to congress january 6th of 2017 where a whole bunch of democrats were objecting to uh uh the certification of the results with president trump it happened with president bush in 2004 uh january 6th of 2005 after the 2004 election that's how that process plays out the line that you cannot cross is the illegal behavior. The line that you can't cross is when you see,

instead of utilizing your power as a member of the House of Representatives, debating and having a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives, that instead you are hurting people, you are breaking things, and you are stealing things. That's the line you can't cross. You can't commit crimes. So there are government officials you think should be held accountable for the insurrection? I am not aware of any member of the House.

I personally am not aware of any member of the House of Representatives who was working with any of the people who were actually taking matters into their own hands and going into and breaking through windows of the Capitol. They were hurting people and stealing things. And if there was a member of Congress who was involved in that, who was working with that, then they committed a crime. If the crime is, you know, throw the air quotes around this one, if the crime is that they were on the floor of the House of Representatives

and they were one of the people saying, hey, I have a problem with the Pennsylvania Secretary of State entering into a friendly lawsuit with the League of Women Voters just before the election in the name of the pandemic, that's not a crime. That's our process. And if she was on the other foot, which it's been,

Democrats can argue the same objections and that's absolutely their right. But you have to do this through your representatives and you can't take the matter into your own hands. You can't hurt people. You can't steal things. You can't break things. I know you have one more question, but I got to take my daughter to the doctor. And I had a question. By the way,

when I was talking about seeing Angela a couple weeks, I was talking about how important it is to show up. And my message to everybody, whether you're Republican, Democrat, Independent, if you want to be able to represent any particular type of community you can't just be either showing up very rarely or never so when i first got to the state senate i represented brentwood central islip and north

bellport uh my possibly that state senate district might have been the most, the biggest black and Hispanic community in the entire state as far as suburban state Senate districts. I found that Republicans were not going into that district because they knew that they would not get their vote. And Democrats were not going into that district

because they knew that even if they didn't show up, that they still would get that vote. And I ended up spending a disproportionate amount of my time inside of Brentwood Central Islip and all these political experts were all telling me, Lee, you're spending too my time inside of Brentwood and Central Islip, and all these political experts were all telling me, Lee, you're spending too much time inside of Brentwood and Central Islip.

They're never going to vote for you. But that's not why we do it. So I really do feel like on top of all the policy stuff, I believe that it is my job. It's very important. It's very important to me to show up as much as possible. So when I was talking about my daughter, who happens to be here, by the way, my daughter being one of the judges and the celebrity cook-off at the Jamaican festival, I just want you to understand that my point there

is that what I've been doing proudly is finding ways to continue to show up in places where Republican candidates haven't shown up in a long time, and I feel like Democrats aren't showing up enough to. Yeah, I think our point was, you know, people always show up when it's election time. Right. But when it's not election time or when it's when we need it the most, that's when they don't show up. Right. It's cool to show up at the jerk fest or wherever, you know, in Brentwood or especially in Long Island, because Long Island is probably one of the racist, most racist places I've been growing up as a kid. I'm from Queens,

of course. But the whole thing is just always showing up. You know what I mean? Always showing up when the light's not on you. When it's not, I'm trying to be a candidate. I'm not running for governor. When it's just a Tuesday afternoon and the church needs you or a young brother needs you because they just got arrested for something else or a sister needs you because of that.

It's showing up all the time. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's true. That's important. And also, you've heard of the members of Congress that allegedly helped plan the January 6th insurrection. I'm sure you've seen those reports, right? Like the planning briefings and the meetings that happened.

I'm not aware of anyone planning folks breaking it, being part of any planning meetings to break inside of the Capitol, to hurt people, to steal things, to break things. I am not aware of any member of Congress being involved in that. I am sure that there were many, many, many meetings about what was happening on the floor of the House of Representatives and on the floor of the United States. Oh, those were prior. The people that were actually a part of the Stop the Steal rally said they had calls with

them in briefing meetings and stuff. Yeah. If there was any member of Congress who was part of any type of a meeting involved with the violence that took place inside of the Capitol, that member of Congress is as responsible as anybody else. Listen, I have a title. Gotcha. I am a member of Congress. I'm a congressman.

I'm the fourth highest ranking person in my house. You know, like my, my constituents keep me grounded. My family keeps me grounded. I still serve in the reserves. I'm outranked by a lot of people in the military that keeps me grounded. You get titled, but we're all, you know, we got to put that aside. You got to stay grounded. My feet are totally on the, on the planet, on the ground. If you are a member of Congress, you don't get impunity to be able to plan actually actual violence. I don't care what working with others on that violence that we saw inside of the Capitol. And if there was anybody, then no one's above the law. Let me ask you this about with the Supreme Court overturning Roe versus Wade. What do you think that means in New York for us?

So it's interesting because New York already codified far more than Roe a few years ago. So it actually didn't change anything in New York as far as what the law is. If New York had not codified Roe a few years ago, and by the way, they did a lot more than that. In preparation. Yeah. If they didn't, then this would be a real question of what should the law in New York be? Because there isn't one. And now that the Dobbs issue came out, now there's some type of the law in New York be because there isn't one and now that the Dobbs

issue was decision uh was uh came out now there's some type of a change in New York so when we woke up the morning before the Dobbs decision the law in New York was exactly the same as when we woke up the day after the Dobbs decision uh it plays out a lot more in other states where they're having a debate because they don't have this codified. But, you know, in New York, the law didn't change at all. This is my last question, because you've been very generous with your time. And, you know, when it comes to the Inflation Reduction Act, you know, of course, it's been pushed back, right? But how come there's never that pushback when it comes to things like the national

defense spending? Like, it was, what, $850 billion, I think, they just passed? And it's like, I don't hear any, where does this money come from when it comes to things like that? We have, and I'll tell you, even from personal experience, there are many ways to save money inside of the defense budget. I remember when we're going out to the range, and they're sending our unit out with 2,000 rounds of ammo, and then it takes us 600 rounds of ammo to qualify,

and then we just waste the other 1,400, as in we just shoot it off, and we're expending 1,400 rounds of ammo, and every round costs money. Why are we doing that? Well, because the next time that we go to the range next year, if we only expend 600 rounds of ammo, they'll only give us 600 next time.

So in order to get 2000, we waste all of that. I've seen it in the military while I was deployed. There was a lot of money. I mean, I was in Iraq in 06. I saw it in person, the way money was getting wasted. They build a new dining facility in the wrong area. And then we just pay that defense contractor tens of millions of dollars to build a whole new dining facility a few hundred feet away but it's on them it's on them that they did not uh you know surface measure the ground the right way uh traveling from point a to point b they they end up spending more on a on a flight than if you just go online you're like why are we spending $1,500 more for

this ticket that only costs us $400 if I bought it myself online? There's a lot that does not make sense as far as the defense budget goes. I believe it needs to be operated more efficiently. I want us to have a strong military. I want us to be prepared to defend ourselves as a country. But in many respects, there are a whole lot of inefficiencies inside of the defense budget. The other thing too is we can't be going around the world as the world's police. We should be leaders. But in being a leader, that doesn't mean that everyone else's problem, everyone else is our problem. What's most important is when determining whether or not an issue that's going on somewhere else abroad affects us where we need to get more involved, we need to say, well, how does this impact our own national security, our own safety?

And that should be the determining factor. There are some people who come in and almost like they are looking for conflict. It's as personal as it gets for me. We have men and women who raise their hand and willing to serve. They're willing to die in defense of our country. It is imperative that people who are in charge of these lives make sure that we never send any of our sons and daughters into harm's way. One, unless they're sent to win. They send them a winner, you don't send them at all.

And too often they get sent without a plan to win. They send them a winner, you don't send them at all. And too often they get sent without a plan to win. And just make sure that we don't get caught up in a country and an engagement that's just not ours to fight. And all of a sudden we're spending trillions of dollars elsewhere. So we waste money on war. We waste money on war. All right. And lastly, I want to ask you, how would you rate Governor Hochul right now?

Well, I'm running against her. And the reason why that I'm running against her, I don't believe that she's doing a good job on many different fronts. She, I believe the state's heading in the wrong direction. She, listen, we can all have our opinions on these issues. You might really like Alvin Bragg, for example. You asked me Alvin Bragg earlier. You didn't say one way or the other how you feel, but you asked me the question. When she got asked about Bragg, she's saying, you know, cut him some slack in slack you just got there he's doing his job now there people out there might agree with that i happen to believe that alvin bragg is not doing a good job and that he should

be replaced uh... i was talking earlier about how you know ways to reduce energy costs in the state in reversing the state's ban on the safe extraction natural gas she's on the opposite side of that issue i was out there fighting for Jose Alba's freedom. And when she was asked about the Jose Alba case, Kathy Hochul says it's a local issue. She's not going to get involved.

By the way, if anybody out there wants to support me, don't do it thinking that I am going to be giving you any type of special favors in return for your donation. It doesn't work like that. People can support me if they just if they support where I stand on particular issues. But if you you'll read story after story after story. I mean, she just signed over the weekend another 30 day extension of her COVID emergency powers. She did it on her own unilaterally without getting permission from the state legislature.

With those powers, that's not just a piece of paper with that she ended up giving a no-bid contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars to a family that donated three hundred thousand dollars to her family donates three hundred thousand dollars and they got hundreds of millions of dollars back in no big contract we have competitive bidding in new york so how did you possibly get this done without a bid well because she signed on the covet emergency powers my opinion we shouldn't have two-year-olds three-year-olds four-year-olds still stuck in masks and they're out there talking as if like this might even come back i don't believe that our health care workers should have been fired for a personal decision of whether or not to get the COVID vaccine. I believe that everyone who's been fired

should get their jobs back with back pay. Especially when they were considered essential just a couple of years ago. And by the way, a couple weeks before that, they were essential, held as heroes. Some of them a couple weeks before they were fired, tested positive for COVID. So when Johns Hopkins University and these other researchers

are saying, hey, natural immunity is a thing. And Johns Hopkins said, if you have COVID, but didn't get the COVID vaccine, you have more protection than if you didn't get COVID and you get the COVID vaccine. And the healthcare worker is saying, I had COVID. I had COVID, by the way, one of the reasons, because you didn't give me enough PPE, because I was out there exposed on the front lines of this, and now I'm fired? Right now, we have people, teachers who are getting fired. We have other people who believe in public service, so they're for all the right reasons. And firefighters and others who are losing their jobs for it.

Now, these are issues that we're on. I'm on a different side of these issues than Governor Hochul. And if anybody's out there and they feel like, listen, our streets are safe, the education's great, it's filled with great opportunity here, life in New York, there's no corruption, you know, up with all these pay-to-play scandals. I just named one, by the way. There are like a whole bunch of these different pay-to-play scandals. If everything's just, you know, all good right now in government, well, then I'm not your guy. I am, I am running because I feel like our state is heading in the

wrong direction. I'll, I'll finish right where I started. You need to be able to answer the question or finish the sentence. New York leads the entire country in population loss because. And I believe that the answer to that is because of the attacks on freedom, on wallet, on safety, and the quality of our kids' education. I believe that I have ideas that make our streets safer. I believe I have ideas that improve the quality of education in our schools. I believe that it will help create jobs and generate more opportunity. And as we're just talking about COVID as one of the many examples, I want to fight to defend freedom in this state. I want this to be a state where all of you can contact the person who left and they went down to Florida while they thought the getting was good down in Florida.

And you're able to say, hey, listen, you got out too early. It's time to come back. Mayor Adams and I, we served together in New York State Senate. And we've stayed in touch since we get along well you know over the course of the rest of this campaign between mayor adams uh and you know this governor's race i'm sure he'll be supportive of governor hokal they're in the same party i get that but i know that the story that will get written in 2023 is about how well governor lee zeldin's working with mayor eric adams why because it's our job to i know how to be able to work with him i believe he knows how to work with

me and whether it's education or it's you know fighting crime or whatever else uh that partnership is important to move our city and stay forward give them the website lee zeldinforNewYork.com, Z-E-L-D-I-N-F-O-R, ZeldinforNewYork.com, on social media as well, at Lee Zeldin, on a whole bunch of different platforms. And I really appreciate you guys having me in. It was an honor to be with all of you, and I look forward to coming back. And this was great. No, I enjoyed the conversation, man. They say you were a striking distance of Governor Hochul. Well, the big question was, have I been in yet to go on The Breakfast Club?

And now, listen, anybody who's out there who has any questions, I'm an open door. You guys could, you know, today, as you saw, you can ask me whatever question you want with regards to anything. There are other people who say, oh, man, they might ask me a question about so-and-so, so then they hide and they don't show up. I'm here to answer whatever questions you have about anything, and I come back and do it again. That's right. Lee Zindel, it's The Breakfast Club. Hey, guys. I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more.

After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast Post Run High is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We've got chills, thrills, and stories that'll make you wish the lights stayed on. So join me, won't you? Let's dive into the eerie unknown together. Sleep tight, if you can.

Listen to Haunting on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's up? This is Ramses Jha.

And I go by the name Q. Ward. And we'd like you to join us each week for our show Civic Cipher. That's right. We discuss social issues, especially those that affect black and brown people, but in a way that informs and empowers all people. We discuss everything from prejudice to politics to police violence, and we try to give you the tools to create positive change in your home,

workplace, and social circle. We're going to learn how to become better allies to each other. So join us each Saturday for Civic Cipher on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, y'all. Nimany here.

I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Executive produced by Questlove, The Story Pirates, and John Glickman, Historical Records brings history to life through hip hop. Flash, slam, another one gone. Bash, bam, another one gone. The crack of the bat and another one gone. The tip of the cap, there's another one gone. Each episode is about a different inspiring figure from history. Like this one about Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl in Alabama who refused to give up her seat on the city bus nine whole months before Rosa Parks did the same thing. Check it. And it began with me. Did you know, did you know?

I wouldn't give up my seat. Nine months before Rosa, it was called a moment. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records. Because in order to make history, you have to make some noise. Listen to Historical Records on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.