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

for having me. Yeah. Man, you know Leah 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 and dash Bell got something in common, right, Yeah, well were you? I thought you were gonna come save me. I was up there on the stage all by myself. I don't know what's going on. So it 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 stabs. Yeah. Crazy. So I was given a speech on stage and someone came up, and you know, fortunately there's a whole bunch of people there who were able to jump in and subdue the guy. Yeah, I'm someone who believes that there's no place for political violence. If you want to if you want 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 in

stage there. Once you feel safe, bring your ideas, your energy. You could disagree. This is America. Um, but I mean I was just reminded of it again just a few days ago with what happened with someone Rushdi. Do you know what it was that set this guy off? Like what like, what were you saying? What was the rhetoric? So what was wild? Well, for one household 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. Uh. There was a couple of sharp pointed edges of it, and so he's lifting his arm up towards me. At the same time that I'm seeing him,

he's wearing his hat that says he's a veteran. The veteran thing goes out out the window when you see brass knuckles, right and now, So when I was when I was younger, and I could thank my mother for this, and one of my former commanders from the from the A second Airborne Division was upset that I wasn't given

my military training enough credit. But when I was younger, I did karate, so I'm a black belt 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 rist. Some folks in self defense, they think that if if a sharp object comes at you,

you should somehow go after that sharp object. If you can gain control of their wrists, then you are able to gain control of that knife or whatever they have in their hands. 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. He 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 one to continue to campaign? Like? Is it worth five? Stuff like that, it's gonna happen. You haven't even not at all. I was actually behind the stage right after this was going on. Some naskm or are you gonna go back on stage? Of course, we're gonna go back on stage. I had thirteen more rallies in thirteen counties scheduled over the next few days, and people

were saying, well, you're gonna keep doing your rallies. Yeah, We're gonna 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 that the security ramped up the next morning and we've only actually had one one issue, but after that and after that, so I was 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 somebody. There was a group of four right behind me, and they were drinking, and somebody overheard this guy introduced his fifteen year old son to me. So this woman starts to making comments because I have identical fifteen year old girls, says some things that uh were inappropriate, and then she starts like grabbing my arm a little bit. I'll push away,

move over in the conversations. Like five minutes later and I am nowhere near her. She like she passes by, She's like get out of my way. She's like walking or walking outside, and she just had like a crumpled up like napkin. She's you know, like like a foot away and she throws it and hits the side of my face and walks out. And the people I'm talking to her like like, what what just happened? Lee? Need security? Yeah that's true. Lee. I'm starting to think as you

impact on, 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 worries. 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 I've had an intruder in my house. I mean,

we've had some things. We were not there during his campaign, before campaign, but as a member of Congress. So the person ended up getting arrested. We have security cameras in the house, and he claimed in his defense, and he had you know, he had some prior records too, which was one of the reasons why law enforcement was able to find him, because they recognized his face through their database. Uh. He claimed that he was just coming in my house

to warm up. But um, from some of the things that you know, we're 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. A look of something in particular some documents. Was it like the Marlin Donald Trump? Was he? You know, I'm not I'm not sure honestly. You know, he just immediately said I was only in there to warm up. As soon as the as soon as law enforcement asked the first question,

he had his story down 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 Republicans. They might think that Democrats all have you know, like horns coming out 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 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, could do it anonymously, they don't have to put their real name to it, and it's it's some evil stuff. My daughters they turned they start eleventh

grade next month, they're turning sixteen next month. They're not yet on social media good and yeah, were so far, so good, um, and you know, they haven't put up much of a fight on it. But I was. There was one time I was at a local high school not that long ago, and you were doing some Q and 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 in the time they

were like thirteen. 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 open 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 will not get on it. So safe to say, you know, if you become governor in the year, you're gonna loosen up those gun laws for protection purposes. Well, listen, there are two different kinds of people on the streets right now. There's there's the person who is out there you know, there's illegal guns. There's there's people coming a crime after crime after crime. This 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, you know, and the slashing we're just talking about salmon 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 jail right because here you are, you know, you can walk out the station

right now, right people are 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 it three different ways. One is the laws,

the DA's the judges. Okay, So as far as the laws go, someone would make an argument for cashule's 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 one hundred dollars in bail. Okay, that's a great example

as to somebody who should be released. Now, you're two Mexican cartel drug smugglers who a month ago got busted in Inwood with one point two million dollars worth of crystal meth, instantly released on cashless bail. I would offer that your argument to create this cashule's 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 Cash's bill, 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 one hundred dollars worth of billy. 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 should be the determining factors whether or not taking a four hundred dollars But I would say that there are all sorts of cases, Like there was somebody who's released on arson, re arrested on Cashulo's bill, re arrested on a double

manslaughter up in Yonkers. There was a person released on Cashul's bail up in Syracuse who I don't think should have been who ended up murdering ninety three year old Connie Tory. There are what about the guy who attacked too because he got let up. Yeah, it's a great example, I 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 would too, that in that particular case, you're doing a disservice to that person who had attacked me on stage because one, he was drunk, that's what at least that's what I was told and interacted with him much more in that couple seconds. 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 thirty in

the morning saying he's released. Let's say it's seven thirty in the morning next day. Monroe County Veteran Service Agency. As I said earlier, I've been told that that they're great. I've interacted with them a little bit. It's seven thirty. 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 act with him. Tell them about some of the services I have. I'm in my twentieth 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 alone. There's somebody who lives around the block from them who's willing to drop the stranger, willing to drop everything in a moment's notice at two 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 these medical providers think that the answer is medication, Just give medication, but that's not 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 that 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. I've heard so many sess 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 thirty in the middle of the night and you don't even know

where he's going. I agree. I mean, you know, you have to turn these facilities in the actual correctional facilities. You know they're gonna be called correctional facilities. Let's actually try to correct some people, give them mental healthcare, you know, help them get clean, whatever it is. Yeah, And and you can't paint everybody with one broad brush. There 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 that 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 all 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 shouldn't 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 in ninth or tenth 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 a cap on charter schools. We should have parents where, especially when your kids stuck in multigenerational poverty,

you should have access to a better performing school. The education component is part of this as well. And you know, if we want more people riding public transportation, we just we need to make the streets the subways safer. And right now, I mean, 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. And you hear that story from one person, You've heard it from one

person too many, and right now that's a reality. And you know, while some people out there like, hey, I feel street 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 states head in the wrong direction right now, so we leave

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 have to be able to finish the sentence. New York State leads the entire country and 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 are going to Carolinas in Tennessee, in Florida and Texas and elsewhere, and they feel like their wallets are being attacked, their safety, their freedom. I mean, 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'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 cobbany 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 their scandal and there's arrests, their indictments, so this crazy thing happens in every other state,

like all across the entire country. You elect a governor and lieutenant governor a four year term and then four years later they're still there, and we should try that New York for once. I think that people that I think it's a factor is 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. As New Yorkers, I feel like are states 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 they're 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 am. I've 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 Hokel. She's running on the Democratic line in the Working Families Party line, but there was in New York, there used to be all different kinds of third party just one on one. That's right. This is like, this is 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 recollecting 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 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. In the perspective, again, it shouldn't just be about republican versus democrat. I agree.

I think most people, the general public agrees to that they want another another option other than a Republican Democrat. But you know, Governor Hotel accused your campaign is submitting a fourteen thousand fake signatures to run on the independent party line. Yeah, our campaign didn't do that, you know, as far as I was told after the fact that that there was somehow somebody outside of our campaign had

added photocopies. Now, listen, photocopies get made of petitions. I mean every time that we've done petitions, for 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, and we were not aware of photocopies

being submitted until after the fact. You know, you blasted a Governor Hochef was supportant inflation reduction, and you can you explain to people, you know what the act is and why why you're against. Yeah, so, and listen, 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, a 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 his appropriations bills are coming up, because you know, as I mentioned earlier, I have fifteen 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. And America always done that though, Yeah, and it's not good, it's bad that that that it just it keeps getting worse and worse. So there are people who wake up today and they're like, all right, well, what's the next trillion dollars bill that we're going to pass. We just passed last week hundreds of billions of dollars.

What's the next trillion dollar bill? Now, that's a lot of money, like, you know, million, billion, trillion for some people like the MBT whatever, it's just you know, it's the same same, but trillion dollars, it's a lot of money. And there are people who want to they're in Congress. They want to pass you know, trillion dollars 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 twenty seven hundred page bill, you know, spending a hundred one point five trillion dollars and nobody has any idea what's in it. And then you know, we're taking heat because 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 would have our government actually work for us, we would have 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 passed another one, and 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 plan. So they end up passing a bill that they just add everything in it. So you're right sitting around a table and Charle Mayne them, God has his request, and dj Envy has his request, Nagelie 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 he just add it all to the bill. That's not necessarily responsible just to add what everyone 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 is actually it's not going to actually reduce inflation. I would argue that it was 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 that

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 four hundred thousand dollars. 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 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 you know, where would we all be able to work. There's a lot of employees that want that like their job, but there are some huge corporations that should be paying taxes. They get all these

tax breaks. Yeah, so the but the largest, the largest, the highest profile piece of it, the fifteen percent booking tax. That that's something that is catching up a lot of businesses of all different kinds of stripes. And that's just something where you when you play out the consequences of it, it ends up getting passed down. So, whether it's the decision to be able to hire more people, it's competitiveness with other countries, it's the ability to be able to

price less for goods. Now you come up with great examples of some business out there that's making a fortune, and you're saying, they know they're they're making all of this money any taxes, right, right, So, but the issue with the taxes that they had created, our taxes that are catching up all all different kinds of businesses in there.

And I'm not someone who just wants to vilify all these businesses, like, for example, I don't remember what Amazon was going to come to Queens and there was this big fight, and that was twenty five thousand 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. 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 in that way, I don't know how you end up treating me. So they end up moving to some other 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 is 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 in a farm, that you should be paid overtime. Right now, the threshold sixty hours. What happens if you reduce it to forty hours. You might think, oh, this is good. If you're working more than forty hours, everyone else is working forty hours

and it's hard work, that day should get overtime. But winds up happening for the New York farm is that they have stated that if you go forward and do this, then I am I Am going to close down. So the farmers who are saying I can't afford that the overtime, they are employees too who are saying that they I mean, they're chasing hours in 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 out 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 have fifty employees, you have you have a hundred employees, and you build it up.

And now a lot of New York businesses end up believing they go to other states. But the other piece that was in that build out a problem with was all this added money to the IRS. And I just they don't need no more money they're just getting. 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 number of agents. And now all of a sudden there's a dispute on just how many new IRS agents were getting. You know, one person says twenty thousand, someone else's eighty seven thousand. 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 our 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, well, this bill is called the reduction ex So now if you don't vote for it and you're against reducing inflation, yeah, exactly 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 would say that it is important to 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 to be pretty big

problem with this one. There are a lot of bills that come out you know, um that you know that they might be controversial, Um that I have some problems with but like maybe I like half of it and I dislike half of it. This was a bill I was pretty much I was pretty much against this one. Well, even the stuff that like would help climate change and

things like that and use it more solar power. And yeah, so I would say I would say, like in New York, for example, I'm someone who believes all the above and an approach to energy. I represent Brookaven National Lab. We have the RPE mission right now. They're investing in research for clean and green technology. That's good now part of

all the above strategy. In my opinion, I support, uh, the what New York you know, we sit on the Marcellus and Unicha shells not here, but the Southern Tier and some other counties, and New York is the only state that bands tapping into this energy source. So I believe that we should reverse the state's ban on the safe extraction 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 mongoring was of why this band should have got put in place isn't actually playing out in these other states. I believe that we should reverse the band. If you want to have natural gas from your home, have natural gas from 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. And but you know some people that their house the way it's located,

you know, the roofs 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 people have trouble accessing energy sources in like New York City right now, they have banned new gas lookups on new construction across

the entire city. 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. You're already 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. You know, if you want to go drive an electrical

vehicle that 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 guess power vehicles that are that are available. So the idea of like, Okay, this would be good if we just get everyone into electric, I get the money 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. Yeah, And New York has 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're oversimplify upstate versus down state, which is an oversimplification because we have sixty two counties, we have a lot of you know, we have a bunch of different regions

around the rest of the state. There 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 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 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, and all these other parts of this state coming 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 and Lake Erie and Lake Ontario and having windmills and say the middle of Atlantic Ocean one saltwater ones, freshwater ones, 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 has frozen, you have a dicer. 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 kind conversation is that people get into their corners and they're like, all right, well, I'm pro wind and your anti wind, and you just don't even talk to each other. I'm pro solo, you're anti soulo. I'm for natural gas, you're anti natural guests, I'm for nuclear, you're not for nuclear, and and they're just not talking to each other. So I'm a member of the Bipartisan

Climate Solutions Caucus in DC. Republicans and Democrats working together try to find common ground. Every year, Georgetown University ranks all four hundred and thirty five members of Congress or members of the House of Representatives based on how bipartisan they are at a four hundred and thirty five. Last year that I was ranked, it was nineteen. Year before that was twelve, Like, well, how is that possible? You stand up for what you believe in. You'll stand up

for what you believe in. Two. 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 environmentally now being full of white supremacist and fascist. Oh gosh, no, no way, don't come on. I'm not gonna say I'm not gonna say all of them, but it's very heavy. I would 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 and 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 like openly, openly championing white supremacy. Listen, there's no room for any type of hate in any I don't care what party you are, I don't care what state you're from. You you can have your opinions, you can have your beliefs. In our country, 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. Wouldn't you say that's a lot of the people. I'll tell you what I am honestly, what most concerns me is that right now we have on the streets of New York, I talk to people who are Jewish New Yorkers who wear yamkas, 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 you know it's close to home from 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 the street. Seek 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 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 on caro, 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 both sides of the issue. I'll tell you this though, about my colleagues and Congress, and there's four there's FOURTI and thirty five members of the

House of Representatives. There's this thought that like when we're all on the floor of the House of Representatives, that like our swords come out and we are 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 Republicans, sometimes the Democrat on Democrat.

Sometimes Democrat and a 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 ask 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 Zelden? 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 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 especially when elections get closer, is that it ends up

tearing families apart. Were like they can't go to a Thanksgiving meal together, people who are co workers, 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 sis or that brother in your own darn family.

Like I think you can admit that you know this, this iteration of the Republican Party, the trumper is, so to speak, this wasn't the Conservatives that we knew eight years ago, or maybe it was at night ages are more, you know, willing to be open with their blatant white supremacy. The Capitol. I can't imagine that people still have to go there and work beside people who might have 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 to 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 in the on the floor of the House of Representatives. So January sixth, 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 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 know, come in start hurting law enforcement, stealing laptops, breaking things. Yeah,

that that part of this is disgusting. It has no place ever in our country, regardless of your politics. But President you know, he stirred that up so I mean, listen, there are followers of President Trump who, in many respects that day took matters very much into their own hands. I mean they went in the capitol, they were violent, they were not working through their elected represent enitives, they were not peaceful and patriotic. 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, for what I mean, for what he said, espionage, I don't getting rid of government records, destruction of justice for related to what they did last week. So so far there, I mean a riot citing an interaction, I don't I don't believe that. I just I don't believe he should go Well, first, a couple of things. First off, I don't believe that he should go to prison. Really,

I don't. Uh, Well, I mean, I what on the thing is like I was asking what 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 interaction in this country isn't worth time. Well, so if we were to go like really start you know, legalizing the way that you know, an insurrection is defined in my opinion under the United States legal definition of an insurrection, that does not meet the elements of of

an insurrection. Um. But but ye, so yeah, so you mentioned last week. Um, it's interesting because the so President Obama, for example, he comes out of office and there are millions of records that that he takes with him, President Bush, 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 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 that continue to be protected by Secret Service. The fundamental question is what did you take? Did they request those documents back though when he just didn't return them. So I don't know the details on that. I saw that, you know, I know that 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? Did they take? But they wouldn't do that if they didn't think they had I don't know. Yeah, my understanding, 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. I'm worried that there is a political element to this, but I can't because Trump's not running. I mean maybe, but yeah, exactly, I mean, he may and there's people who strongly dislike him.

There are people who are involved in this process. Some people who who may be supportive of signing off on this, who do not like President Trump. But again, I can't 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. Would you support him if he ran in twenty twenty four believe that? Well, first off, he's got to make a decision. He's going

to run. If he runs in twenty twenty four, 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 twenty twenty two. I'm running for governor of New York November eighth of twenty twenty two. I'm not thinking about twenty twenty four. That's a decision maybe the President ends up making post election. Maybe it's in 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, twenty twenty four feels like a lifetime right now away because I'm spending all weight, every day, every minute of every day focused on on this race. And quite honestly, as I travel around the state and I

ask New Yorkers, what are your most important issues? What you want me to be focused on the top two issues that I hear about are crime in the economy. What do you think what about the black community, the minority community, blacks and browns? Right, you talked about the Asian community, You talked about Jewish community. What about our community? What's your thoughts in our community? Yeah? So, speaking of which, I'm glad Angela is 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 that there was a lot of talents on your plate that day at the at the celebrity cookoff comes to your mind? No, no no, no, you know, I was just saying, we were together at the Jamaican jerk Fest a couple of weeks ago in Jamaica. Terrible segue.

No no no, no, that's when I was with I was with Angela at the in Jamaica together only be an asses because earlier you talked about Asian community and didn't know I understand what I feel like, our community always gets left. No, That's what I'm saying, Like the most important thing is to show up, so you know, for example, that's one of the examples is you know, a couple of weeks ago, we were together and there was an

amazing turn. I don't know how many folks were there, maybe like fifteen, seventeen, eighteen, twenty thousand people showed up in Queens for that event. I was at few days back, the National Night Out back in Southeast Queens, sitting down with black passers in their first leads and Sunnyside. I was in Harlem just a few days ago actually doing a press conference. 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 you know, show up and work with the black community. I was like, 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, W. Wasserman Schultz, Deborah Lawrence, and Will Hurd. The relationship between and I'm Jewish. I believe that the relationship between a

Jewish community and 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 Two, and all Black Battalion was the most decorated battalion going the furthest East and liberating Kirchkin. So the relationships misunderstood. The most important thing if you want to earn someone support is to show up uh and to be able to talk to him 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're talking earlier about one veteran who is released too early. There are there are people who they end up getting caught on the wrong end of the law, and that 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 is already like, yeah,

I haven't heard you say what you're going to do. Yeah. The reason why sis to politicians because we know all listen aready. Yes, yes, it's education, it's important. But like, you know, how do we fix these problems? You know, minorities can't get homes right because we can't get 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. You know they pull us over way more than anybody else. You know, to marijuana. We've been affected by marijuana and cannabis the most, and it's harder for us to get a license for marijuana cannabis. So get to the point where how do we help You know what I mean, and I get it. You you judge angels to make chicken, but that doesn't help.

So for one, I mean, for one, I do think it's important to show up because a lot of people don't 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. Show up when it's when an election time. Anybody, they definitely do well, that's a problem,

it is, right. So the second piece is I really feel like education is the most important piece of this parental involvement to the maximum extent possible, to the maximum extent possible, that you have parents involved in their kids education, that a family unit can be as strong as possible. Sometimes for a kid. The way the life goes, I had three divorces in my family growing up, it's not it's not easy, you know, looking at the glass half full, I had four parents growing up, so I guess, hey,

that's that's better than maybe having two. The having a good paying job waiting for you so you can afford to survive and then you can live the dream that you can have some streets, affordable housing is important. Right now, there are people who want to invest the more affordable

They want to build more affordable housing. But 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 twelve months or fifteen 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, that you can't underestimate the power of prayer and faith in people's lives. UM. That is that is important as well. A lot of people UM are feeling their religious freedom under attack. Uh, that's a that's a piece of encouraging people to go find find God in their lives. And

I'm Jewish, you know, whatever your faith is. As far as government goes, we need our streets to be safe. Support law enforcement speak of that. Let's see speaking of that when you talk about crime, give me some ways to reduce crime without putting more money into the police. Departments.

Without putting more police officers on this greet and putting more money in 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 laws that are getting passed right now are a disservice not just to law by New Yorkers, but also to criminals. He 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 he's you know, from the first day, he's refusing to enforce laws across the board. He 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. I'm on, 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 ten twenty names. My only the only requirement is to do your job. And Alvin Brad the way that ends up plane out a couple of weeks ago, you end up having this sixteen year old. He was just committed a violent robbery. He gets released, he gets in a fight with the officer in the subway. A lot of people saw the video. The sixteen year old thought that he had the right

to jump the turnstile. Now this interesting issue, though, So the Manhattan DA 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 the 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 is to jump turnstile. So what happens is they get in a fight. Right at the end of the fight, the sixteen 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 that from the sixteen year old committing the violent robbery, put right back out on the street, get some to fight with the officer, right back out on the street. Again that this is a very important age to be able to actually help these kids out. So I feel like you asked me about Bragg and you'll Brag didn't ask for any type of bail when the violent robbery was committed. He had the day won memo to turnstyle jumping.

He gets released right back out on the street. After the assault of the cop, Bragg with the Jose albuquees, I mean, Jose Alba ends up in Riker's 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 Alba and that was wrong. So I feel like I feel like Bragg 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 our disservice not just the law abiding citizens, but also to people who are on the other end of the law. He's like you take Cashlew's 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 inside of the local police precincts, the off 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 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 they if they are going, 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 people think, people think that this at success for shelters is to build a shelter, to put a roof over someone's head, and then that's it, like like politicians high five each other and like, hey, this is great, we just have

been a ribbon cutting. There's a new shelter. Success is getting somebody out of a shelter. Is that somebody gets into the shelter and there you're working with them so that they were able to live an independent life and they're not eyeing on that shelter. They're not stuck in a low income like they people who who are They have a plight now in twenty twenty two, because of the system that's in place right now, they will be stuck in the same exact plight in twenty thirty two

and twenty forty two. Maybe along the way they will have a kid, and the kid will be stuck in the same plate that they will. You don't get them help with their drug addiction. Well maybe their kid who's like, because that woman's pregnant, that kid is being born into literally being born into it. I'm glad to say that because I wish politicians Democrats and Republicans or as tough

on poverty as they are on crime. I wish they were as tough on lack of opportunity as they are on crime, because a lot of times you can prevent a sixteen 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 would, 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 twenty five thousand dollar jobs. That's a great thing. No, twenty five thousand,

The average job was like lover one hundred. All right, creating jobs, right, But my problem is is where 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 gonna pay no taxes. Where they're making billions of 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. You know, got Jeff Basos buying yachts and playing to whatever he does. I'm happy for him. But he's paying no taxes right and not even like he would be paying forty percent or fifty percent. He probably paying like twenty percent. So this is so, that's all true. What happens in for being a billionaire. So in New York, this is what

we do wrong. Is that they have taxes. 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. 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 to 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 you know, we have safe streets, we you're living close to the you know, for morale of your employees. You get to live in the greatest city in the history of the world to commute at least

to the greatest city in history of the world. But the problem is is that all the other policies combined, 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,

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 twenty five thousand 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 I know that it's sent a message to other business as well, saying, if you know 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, it's 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, hey, 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 good, 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. One is, just like in general, if somebody's not held accountable for the attempted cool of this country on January sixth. How can we you know and show it that'll never happen again?

And who do you think should be held accountable? Well, I mean there's been the criminal justice systems come down pretty hard on a lot of people who were inside

of the capitol. There are people who I'm talking about the members of Congress who may it may have assisted the president, like you got to get the big fish, so the so there were members of Congress who had they had issues with certain aspects of the way without getting you too far sidetracked on it, there were In twenty twenty, 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 administer 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 in Wisconsin was advising his constituents in that county how to get around the states voter ID and vote and signiory verification law. You can't do that in Pennsylvania. The Secretary of State what it entered into a friendly lawsuit with the legal 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 sixth of twenty one, twenty seventeen, twenty twenty five, whatever, that's the place that that is done. That it's part of It happened when I first got to Congress January sixth of twenty seventeen, where a whole bunch of Democrats were objecting to the certification of the

results with President Trump. It happened with President Bush in two thousand and four. January sixth of two thousand and five, after the two thousand and four 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 they 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 in the row hands and in going into in 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, through the air quotes around this one, if the crime is that they were on the floor of the House of represent Natives and they were one of the people saying, hey, I have a problem with the Pennsylvania Secretary of State um 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 that's our process. And if she was on the other foot, which it's been, you know, Democrats can 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 in your hand. You can't hurt people, you can't steal things, you can't break things. Yeah, one more question, but I have and I had a

question you you. 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 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 Brentwyn Central I slip at North Bellport. 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 disproportioned amount of my time inside of Brentwin Central Islip. And all these political experts we're all telling me Lee, you're spending too much time inside of Brentwin 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 of 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, you know, 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 is where Republican candidates haven't shown up in a long time, and I feel like Democrats aren't shown up enough to Yeah, I think at

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 fast or wherever you know in Brentwood, especially in Long Island, as Long Island's probably one of the racist, most racist places I've been growing up as

a kid. I'm from Queens of course, um. But the whole thing is it's always showing up, you know what i mean, always showing up when you when the light's not on you, when when it's not I'm trying to be a candidate when I'm not, you know, running for a 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 assistant needs you because of that's showing up all the time. That's

that's yeah, that's that's true. That's important. And also you've heard of the you know, the members of Congress that allegedly held playing January six restur insurrection. I'm sorry you've seen those reports, right, well, like the planning briefings in the meetings that happened. I'm not green. I'm not of anyone planning for 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 other Yeah, the people that day were actually a party to stop steel

Rallied said they had called with them in briefing meeting. Yeah, if if there is, 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, A member of Congress is as responsible as as at anybody else. I listen. I have a title. I am a member of Congress. I'm a calm 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. We gotta put that aside. You gotta stay ground in My feet are totally on plan on the ground. If you are a member of Congress, you don't get your impunity to be able to plan actually actual violence. I don't care whether it's inside the Capitol ro outside of the capital. Yeah, exactly, including present.

No one is above the law. I'm just telling you that I personally am not aware of anybody working with others on what on that violence that we saw inside of the Capitol, and if and if there were any if there was anybody, then no one's above the law. Yeah. Let me ask you this about with the Supreme Court overturning Row versus Wade, what do you think that means in New York for us? So it's interesting because New York are codified far more than Row 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 Row a few years ago, and by the way they did, they did a lot more than that in preparation. Yeah, if if they didn't, then this would be quite a real question of what should the law in New York be, because there isn't one. And now that the Dabbs issue was decision came out, Now there's

some type of change in New York. So when we woke up the morning before the Dabbs decision, the law in New York was exactly the same as when we woke up the day after the Dabbs decision. 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. It's my last question because you'd be 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, Um, But how come there's never that pushback when it comes to things like the national defense spending like it was what eight hundred and fifty billion? I think they just passed, And it's like, we have any 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, Um, there are many ways to save

money inside of the defense budget. I remember when you know we're going out to the range and they're taking they're sending our unit out with two thousand rounds of AMMO, and then it takes us six hundred rounds of AMMO to qualify, and then we just waste, you know, the fourteen hundred as in like we just shoot it off and we're expending fourteen hundred rounds AMO 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 six hundred rounds of AMMO, they'll only give us six hundred next time. So in order to get two thousand, we waste all of that. I've seen it in the military wall is deployed. There was a lot of money. I'm ales in Iraq and oh six, I saw it in person, the way money was getting wasted.

You know, 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 surface measure the ground the right way traveling from point A to point B. They end up spending more on it on a four.

Then if you just go online. You're like, why are we spending fifteen hundred dollars more for this ticket that only costs US four hundred dollars 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 operate 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 we 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 I'm 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 willness 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 win, and you'll

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 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 Hoko right now? Well, I'm running against her, right and the reason why that I'm running aginst her.

I don't believe that she's doing a good job on many different fronts. 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 ask Alvin Bragg earlier. You know, you didn't say one way or the other, how do you feel? But you ask me the question when she got asked about Bragg, She's saying, you cut him from slack. He just got there. He's doing his job. Now. There are people out there

who might agree with that. I happen to believe that Alvin Bragg is not doing a good job and that he should be replaced. I was talking earlier about how you ways to reduce energy costs in this state and reversing the state's ban on the safe extraction of 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 Hoogel 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 like 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'll read story after story after story, I mean, she just signed over the weekend another thirty 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 COVID emergency powers. My opinion, we shouldn't have had two year olds, three year olds, four year old still stuck in masks and they're out there talking as if like this might even come back. I don't believe that our healthcare 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 considered essential just a couple of years ago, and by the way, a couple of weeks before that they were essential, held as heroes. Some of them a couple of 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 you know, 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. You know, right now, we have people who are teachers who are getting fired.

We have other people who believe in public service to there for all the right reasons, and you know, firefighters and others who are getting they're losing their jobs for it. Now, these are issues that we're on the I'm on a different side of these issues than than Governor Hokell. And if anybody's out there and they feel like, listen, our streets are safe. The education is great, It's filled with

great opportunity here life in New York. There's no corruption, you know, up with this paid all these paid to place scanels. I just named one. By the way, they 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 running because I feel like our state is heading in the wrong direction. 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 and 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 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 the 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 together 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 and you know, this governor's race, I'm sure he'll be supportive of Governor Hockel. They're in the same party. I get that. But I know that the story that will get written in twenty twenty three is about how well Governor Leezelden's working with Mayor Eric Adams. Why, because it's our job too. 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 fighting crime or whatever else, that partnership is important to move our city and stay forward. Give him the website Zelden for New York dot Com z E L d I n f O R. Zelden for New York dot Com on a social media as well at lee Zelden on a whole bunch of different platforms. And 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, So I enjoyed the conversation.

Many that you were striking distance of a of governor. Whole cool. So well, the big question have I been in yet to? Uh? You know, go on the Breakfast Club? And now you know, listen every anybody who's out there who has any questions. I am an open door you guys. Could you know today as you saw, you asked me whatever questions you want with regards anything. There are other people 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, end, It's the Breakfast Club