National Media Notices Zeldin’s Bizarre Obsession With Protecting Trump in Ongoing Ukraine Scandal
In a desperate attempt to curry favor with Donald Trump, vulnerable Republican Lee Zeldin, nervous about holding his seat, is positioning himself as the President’s most staunch defender and local and national press is noticing.
While Zeldin’s star is rising on the national stage, as the East Hampton Star put it, he’s “shrinking” back home.
There’s been a clear shift in Zeldin’s priorities, and they’re not with the people of New York’s 1st District.
Voters will remember in November 2020.
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Inside One Man’s Quest to Become the Newest, Most Pugnacious Member of Trump’s ‘Squad’
Sam Brodey | October 24, 2019
Night had fallen on the U.S. Capitol and congressman Lee Zeldin had just left another grueling session of the impeachment inquiry before stepping into the lights of the assembled TV cameras and settling into his new role.
That day, the media was peppering a quartet of GOP lawmakers—including some of Trump’s most vocal supporters on Capitol Hill—about the 10-hour deposition of the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, which had just wrapped up behind closed doors. And as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)—one of the president’s top Capitol Hill attack dogs—took the lead in beating back the questions, Zeldin, a three-term Republican lawmaker from New York, felt compelled to elbow in and say his piece.
“How about the Democrats provide the Republicans and the president the same exact rights that they would demand if everything was reversed?” Zeldin asked. “You’re talking about an impeachment of the President of the United States, and everything is going to happen behind closed doors, offering no protection whatsoever. No transparency, no accountability, no due process.”
Next to him, Jordan stood silent, smiling, like an owner admiring the trick his young pup had learned. Zeldin was on a roll, popping off like he’d been marinating in indignation all day.
“This process is a joke,” the congressman said. “And the consequences are huge.”
The impeachment inquiry—made official by Speaker Nancy Pelosi a month ago—has placed Republican members of Congress largely into two categories: those who are willing to concede discomfort with the president’s actions and those who are determined to show their loyalty and devotion. Few have embraced the latter mission more than Zeldin.
Hardly a household name before impeachment began, the New York Republican has used the stage it’s provided to take something of a star turn within GOP circles. The congressman has been at each one of the depositions of key witnesses, which have often run for eight or more hours. And each time he has dutifully appeared afterward in front of the cameras to push back strongly against the impeachment process, speaking in angry diatribes and tenacious interviews with the press. Zeldin has been a fixture on Fox News, too, and has brought his pugnacity to social media as well. During one recent cable hit from the Capitol, he showed off a bit of Trumpain flair, declaring that Hillary Clinton needed “to see a psychiatrist.”
His efforts have not gone unnoticed. One former White House official said that the congressman is “one of” Donald Trump Jr.’s “favorite congressmen.” And Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a Trump confidant, told The Daily Beast that in a recent conversation the president “exuded praise” for Zeldin.
“He’s brilliant and tenacious,” said Gaetz. “Lee understands how to fight in the era of Trump… He’s a cut above most in the House.”
To his GOP colleagues on the Hill, Zeldin has become a trusted source of information on the internal goings-on of impeachment. A senior House Republican aide described him as “both aggressive and articulate in documenting the litany of Democrat abuses of this process, which has made him one of our most effective communicators on this issue.”
The other side of the aisle has taken notice too. Though he was never considered a moderate, Zeldin had been known to have a positive rapport with Democrats. But that seems to be changing. “Used to be good,” said one Democratic aide when asked about Zeldin’s reputation in the party. “But he’s gone off into crazy Trumpworld recently.”
What sets Zeldin apart from the rest of the House conservative firebrands eager to carry the water for Trump is that he is the only one with a remotely competitive 2020 re-election fight.
[…]
The congressman’s work on those and other matters is what first endeared him to Trumpworld. “While Lee has less of a brand name than a Jim Jordan or Mark Meadows, he’s become more prominent not just in the last several weeks but probably in the last two years,” the former White House official told The Daily Beast.
[…]
But Zeldin seems unbothered by the idea that he’s become monomaniacally focused on defending Trump. As he headed into a deposition with the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, Bill Taylor—who would minutes later deliver a shocking account that established the quid-pro-quo arrangement that even some Republicans have held out as a red line—Zeldin did not say if there were anything the president could do that would cause him to give up his defense.
“The evidence has obliterated so much of what they’re charging,” he told The Daily Beast, “and I can’t just ignore facts to play along with that hypothetical.”
—with reporting from Sam Stein
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