Congressman and Republican Gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin of New York told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that he would declare an emergency in the Empire State on his first day if elected. He could potentially make the move “in the first 100 minutes.”
Zeldin appeared on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Bartiromo and laid out his expectations after news broke from polling last week that has Zeldin in a near-dead-heat with incumbent Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul. Real Clear Politics has named the race a “toss-up.”
“I want to do everything I possibly can in the first 100 minutes,” Zeldin said according to The Daily Wire.
“I mean, I want to have a very active day one. I just announced a couple days ago that as soon as I am sworn into office, I’m going to be declaring a crime emergency here in the state of New York,” he began.
“I’m going to suspend New York’s cashless bail laws and some other pro-criminal laws that have been passed, force the legislature to come to the table to negotiate an improvement because we have to take back our streets. We need law abiding New Yorkers back in control of New York streets instead of criminals.”
Seeming to take a page from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ book, Zeldin added.
“I’ve previously announced that my first action, my first day that I’m in office, is telling them the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg that he’s being removed for his refusal to enforce the law,”
DeSantis made headlines in August when he publicly removed State Attorney Andrew Warren from office after he pledged not to prosecute people for violating the state’s abortion statutes.
Zeldin continued, “But it doesn’t stop there. We need to support our men and women in law enforcement, we need to make sure whether it’s cashless bail, less is more, raise the age, hall tax, some of these other names of laws that have passed, which don’t get as much attention are resulting in people getting hurt, law abiding New Yorkers getting hurt.”
Zeldin‘s predictions of cashless bail proved prescient when a man walked free after assaulting him on stage at a July campaign event.
Check out Zeldin’s comments on “Sunday Morning Futures.”
NY gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin: “As soon as I am sworn into office, I am going to be declaring a crime emergency here in the State of New York.” pic.twitter.com/3PvLpmPDdl
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) October 16, 2022
Zeldin concluded the interview by telling Fox audiences, “I’m pretty motivated to do everything in my power in the first one 100 minutes to take back the state. And listen, there’s gonna be opportunities beyond that, but we’re gonna have a very aggressive day one so the New Yorkers know that we’re wasting no time to restore the state to glory.”
