MILWAUKEE- Former New York Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin said he is “tired” of seeing Republicans verbally and physically attacked, arguing that anti-Trump and anti-GOP rhetoric has reached new highs over the years.
“The rhetoric has gotten so bad between, yes, the commentary on target, remember Dan Goldman making a comment about how President Trump needs to be removed. Bennie Thompson wants to take away Secret Service protection. One of [Thompson’s] “Zeldin's aides were complaining that the shooter on Saturday night had missed President Trump. I'm tired of seeing Republicans targeted like this,” Zeldin told Fox News Digital during the Republican National Convention on Tuesday.
Zeldin responded to President Biden's retraction of a comment earlier this month that “it's time to put Trump on target,” saying the comment was a “mistake” after a 20-year-old man in Pennsylvania attempted to assassinate Trump during a rally Saturday night. Zeldin reflected that verbal and physical attacks against Republicans have been constant and escalating for years before a shooter tried to kill the 45th president.
“I saw it with Steve Scalise with the shooting a few years ago, the attack on Rand Paul, the attack on Judge Kavanaugh, this near-assassination of President Trump. Yes, we should settle scores at the ballot box. I agree with that. It's a truth. It's something that everyone should preach and everyone should believe in,” he continued.
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WASHINGTON, DC, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, UNITED STATES – 03/04/2023: Former Congressman Lee Zeldin speaks on day three of the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) conference in Washington, DC at the Gaylord National Harbor Resort & Convention. ((Photo by Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images))
“Ultimately, we have to face, head on, the fact that there is a very broad effort to throw everything they can at President Trump outside of the ballot box to try to prevent him from taking office… It's gone too far. It's sickening and it needs to stop,” he continued.
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Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to attend the second day of the Republican National Convention (RNC), at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S., July 16, 2024. (Reuters/Mike Segar)
Zeldin said that three days after Trump announced his 2022 re-election bid, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Jack Smith as special counsel to prosecute Trump, while Georgia U.S. Attorney Nathan Wade “was sitting inside the White House Counsel’s Office” and Justice Department official “Matthew Colangelo was filing his papers to leave the Justice Department” to take a job in the Manhattan district attorney’s office ahead of Trump’s indictment in the New York criminal case.
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Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump applauds as Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance gestures on the second day of the Republican National Convention (RNC), at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S., July 16, 2024. (Reuters/Elizabeth Frantz)
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“All of this happened nine days after President Biden said we would have to look at ways outside the ballot box to defeat President Trump,” he said. “I'm not going to accept the fact that it's all a coincidence.”
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“Any average, normal, sensible citizen can see that. Let's really focus on settling scores at the ballot box. Let's not focus on crazy criminal cases and trying to bankrupt the president and all these other attempts that threaten security.”
