Lee Zeldin Slams Democrat ‘Hypocrisy’ over Biden Classified Docs, George Santos: Biden’s Entire Career Spent ‘Lying About Himself’

Hailing the recent “red wave” in New York state that saw the “most Republican House delegation since the mid 90s,” former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) called out the “hypocrisy” over Rep. George Santos, noting that President Biden “spent his entire political career lying about himself,” with many Democrats receiving a “total free pass” for falsifying their backgrounds, while suggesting Biden’s recent classified document scandal set the White House up for “failure” after its handling of the raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. 

Zeldin also insisted Republicans erred in assuming “neutrality” on the issue of abortion during the 2022 midterm elections instead of being on the “offense.” 

In an interview with Steve Malzberg on his eponymous radio program on TNT Radio on Thursday, Zeldin, a former gubernatorial candidate from New York State who came within six points of defeating Gov. Kathy Hochul last fall and whose competitive campaign helped many others win seats in the Empire State, asserted that he had “zero” regrets over his decision to leave his seat to run for governor.

Midterm Elections

“For 19 months, we gave it our all [and] fought the good fight throughout the State of New York and got more votes than any Republican statewide in 52 years,” he said. “Despite there not being a red wave nationally, we were able to fight hard to make sure there was at least a red wave here in the state.”

Zeldin noted that “if it was a status quo congressional election in New York, we’d be sending six Republicans down to D.C. at the start of this session a couple weeks ago, and instead we sent 11 Republicans down.”

Calling it the “most Republican House delegation since the mid 90s coming out of New York,” the former Republican Congressman said he was “thrilled” to see that in New York. 

“There’s just so much to be able to build upon,” he said.

Admitting to feeling that the “wrong leadership” is currently in power in Albany, Zeldin noted his “concern” for New York’s future. 

“I think I would actually have a whole lot of regret if we didn’t make the run,” he said. 

Asked to explain how more Republican seats were picked up in New York than in previous times despite no red wave across the country, Zeldin highlighted that Republicans in New York “were all running as one ticket top down, bottom up — one team echoing each other’s message.” 

“We’re certainly aligned on what was wrong and how to combat a lot of what was causing New York to lead the whole country now on [the] migration [issue],” he added.

Noting that efforts inside long-ignored Democrat urban areas “resulted in driving the conversation inside of that media market,” Zeldin spoke against the practice of Republicans avoiding big cities. 

“They think to themselves that it’s not the most efficient use of time because you’re going to get crushed inside of the city,” he said. “And even if that’s true that you’re going to get beaten badly in the city — one, I would say that there’s a lot of opportunity to be able to win votes.”

He explained that when winning votes inside of Democratic areas as opposed to heavily Republican areas, “you’re flipping a vote, and by flipping a vote, in essence, it’s worth two votes,” whereas in other areas “getting someone to come out and vote for you, it’s either they stay home or they vote for you and that gets you [only] one.”

In addition, the former gubernatorial candidate pointed to the role of the media in such a tactic:

When people wake up, even if they live in the suburbs… they start their day watching the morning news [and] they end their day watching the evening news and they’re seeing you; they see Republicans [and] conservatives out there talking about making our streets safer and life in the state more affordable and improving the quality of education — whatever the issues of the day are. 

“It also drives what people are focused on outside of the city, and I think Republicans [and] conservatives nationally need to understand that,” he added.

Abortion

Zeldin suggested that many candidates across the country “didn’t understand” or know how to talk about the issue of abortion, assuming they had a “choice of neutrality” on the matter, when in reality they would either need to be on “offense” or “defense.”

“They’re either going to be on offense, and they can either win the issue or battle it to a draw, or they can be on defense and be losing,” he said. 

“So when you try to choose neutrality, so you’re not gonna talk about it at all, you’re gonna end up losing; you’re gonna find yourself on defense,” he added. “You might be shocked by it, caught off guard, and you’re gonna lose.”

Claiming many have “stumbled over the issue” while “fumbling all over the place” when asked about the topic at events or debates, Zeldin argued that it was “important to have understood that this was a decision that was going to come out by the end of June.” 

“There was a possibility that the Supreme Court might actually overturn Roe and when that decision was going to be coming out with that possibility, you might as well start thinking about how you’re going to talk about it, as opposed to just wishing that it was just never going to come up in the first place,” he said.

Zeldin stressed the need to understand “how the left organizes, and how they message, where they have learned how to brand causes in as few words as possible,” calling it “very misleading” the way that they may successfully “refer to a bill [which] might not actually be what’s inside of that bill.” 

“For us, on our side, we should not play into that at any level on any issue,” he said. “The other side is going to do that time and again [yet] we can’t ever be falling for it.” 

“We need to be on guard on offense and making sure that the bills that you’re voting on are being defined based off of what’s actually inside of them, not the way that the left is trying to spin into something else,” he added.

Biden’s Classified Document Scandal

On recent revelations of a classified document scandal on the part of President Joe Biden, Zeldin said the White House, the DOJ and the FBI “really set themselves up for failure on this with the way that they handled the Mar-a-Lago raid” on former President Donald Trump in August, as well as the way Biden “was answering questions on 60 Minutes, filled up with that level of full outrage.”

“Fast forward to this [and] you have multiple problems here,” he said.

One problem, he noted, is the “double standard and hypocrisy.” 

The second, he noted as someone with roughly two decades of military experience, is that the “handling of classified information is something that our government takes very, very seriously.”

“If you are going to bring down the hammer on anyone at the bottom of the totem pole, you can’t be putting such a massive emphasis on the need to secure this classified information and threaten consequences and actually follow through with what, in many respects, could be a loss of a career; it could be a loss of a clearance; it could be criminal penalties; and then have people at the top of that totem pole… not experiencing the consequence,” he said. 

“I think so many people in this process set themselves up for failure in the way that the raid took place targeting President Trump in Mar-a-Lago and then the way people were talking about including President Biden himself,” he added.

George Santos

On newly elected GOP Rep. George Santos (NY), whose web of lies continues to be exposed as he’s admitted to lying about, among other things, his background, education and experience, Zeldin maintained that “undoubtedly there has been a loss of trust” and “a lot of disappointment.” 

“Much of this, quite frankly, is sad to a lot of people who were happy that he won,” he said. “They were hoping that he was going to do a fantastic job, and, really, since the election it has gone downhill fast in many different ways with him.”

But Zeldin also noted that President Biden “has spent his entire political career lying about himself, and he’s been rewarded as President of the United States,” he said. “And I think that we need to not give him a free pass.”

In addition, he called attention to “other members of Congress who have been lying about their backgrounds,” including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) among others.

“There should be outrage [over Santos], I understand that, but there are people who don’t want to say anything and they want to give a total free pass to anyone who’s a Democrat and any of the names I mentioned, including President Biden,” he said, arguing that “you’re really eroding your own credibility.”

“And I don’t want to hear you complain about this stuff with Santos if you have nothing ever to say about anyone with a ‘D’ next to their name,” he added. 

Future

Regarding his next steps following his recent run for office, Zeldin stated that he did not believe that public service is something that is “just simply in the rearview mirror.” 

“At some point in the future, we’ll see what the right opportunity is,” he said. 

For now, as “someone who has spent time in the private sector in the past,” Zeldin noted that he is “back in the private sector now.” 

“My daughters are in the middle of eleventh grade [and] they’re going off to college in a year and a half [so] I’ll be able to spend a little more time with them before they head off,” he said. 

“Regardless, even if I might not be serving in an elected office right now, I’m fully committed to doing absolutely everything in my power in this effort to save our country with really important elections coming up November 24, including a race for President of the United States,” he concluded. “I’m all in to do whatever I can to help.”