Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., said Saturday that the push by New York Democrats to enact extensive COVID-19 mandates stems from their desire to win in the upcoming primary campaign for the governor's seat.
"Ideologically, you have people who want to pursue opportunities for more government control," the New York Republican said on Newsmax's "Saturday Report."
"[They are] people who believe that the science should follow the politics, as opposed to politics following the science."
Zeldin is running for governor of New York.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday announced a mask mandate for all indoor public places if businesses don't implement a vaccination requirement for entry.
Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who Zeldin said Saturday is "just not an intelligent person," has set up a vaccination requirement for private businesses, requiring employees to get their shots by Dec. 27, just a few days before he leaves office.
"They're all focused on finding any opportunity to have more mandates and more lockdowns," said Zeldin. "They want to punish and segregate and the rest of us are stuck here speaking up wanting to fight back. That's one of the reasons why I'm in this race for governor of New York because this one-party rule is devastating."
Meanwhile, de Blasio's mandate on private businesses has put the fear into employees that they might be out of work for Christmas.
"You have all sorts of New York City residents who voted for Bill de Blasio, and I don't know why they voted for [him] not just once, but twice," said Zeldin. "Now they wonder whether or not they're going to be put out of a job."
He added that Hochul's statewide mandate, that goes against people who got their vaccines because they were promised by the government that their lives would return to normal.
"New Yorkers who are even those who are in favor of vaccines and their loyal Democrats, they're upset because their life has to go back in reverse as well," said Zeldin. "This could be coming to a liberal city, a liberal state near you, so we have to be on offense and winning this. The courts have to shut this down. There's no way that this vaccine mandate that de Blasio is instituting is even legal."
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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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