Rep. Lee Zeldin said Monday on Newsmax that if he wasn't in Congress, the man suspected of trying to attack him would not have been behind bars.
"I think that we need to repeal cashless bail in New York," the New York Republican, who is running for governor in his state, told Newsmax's "National Report." "You charge this person with a violent felony for assaulting someone and then they're immediately released back out on the street within hours."
The suspect in Thursday's attack, David Jakubonis, 43, is facing federal charges of using a dangerous weapon to assault a member of Congress after the FBI on Saturday filed an affidavit against him. Jakubonis had been freed on his recognizance after initially being charged with second-degree assault, and was taken into custody Saturday at his apartment complex.
"The only reason why they were able to charge him was because I'm a member of Congress," said Zeldin. "What happens if you're not a member of Congress? In that case, the attacker is still out on the street."
Zeldin said he bumped up his security detail at campaign events over the weekend after the attack, which happened while he was speaking at a campaign rally outside of Rochester. Zeldin said he's concerned about violence in his state.
"I saw a video not that long ago in the New York City subway system, where there was a bunch of women hugging the guard rails next to the staircase, and this isn't a sight that any of us want to see anywhere in the United States of America and something that we're seeing right here in New York City," he said. "The solutions are obvious to fix it, but we have one-party Democrat rule, pushing policies that are actually making it less safe, more pro-criminal, and not backing our men and women in blue."
Zeldin also spoke out about the situation at the border, commenting after complaints from mayors in New York City and Washington D.C., that the influx of immigrants is crowding the shelters in their cities.
"We need to do more to shut this down," Zeldin said. "We should complete construction of the border wall. We should end catch and release. We should be enforcing the remain in Mexico policy. We should be backing up our Customs and Border Patrol agency. We should cut down the travel agency of the Biden administration, where people are getting bussed and flown all across the entire country."
Most importantly, he said that the lack of leadership at the federal level has to change.
"A nation without borders is no nation at all," Zeldin said, adding that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is having a "positive impact" by sending immigrants to blue cities.
But still, "you shouldn't have the Texas governor feeling that they have to control their own border to another country," Zeldin said.
Zeldin, focusing again on New York, said people in his state are paying the highest taxes in the country, and called for an end to state laws that ban the fracking of oil and natural gas.
"We're the only state that bans the safe extraction of natural gas," he said. "We don't want to see the administration going to Iran and Venezuela. Ramp up domestic energy production right here in New York."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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