Zeldin Delivers RNC Speech from Westhampton VFW Post
Congressman Lee Zeldin defended President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic during his speech at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night.
Zeldin, a Republican who is seeking reelection in the First Congressional District, delivered the prime-time speech from the Veteran of Foreign Wars post 5350 in Westhampton Beach.
“During a once in a century pandemic, an unforeseeable crisis sent to us from a far-away land, the president’s effort for New York was phenomenal,” he said, in stark contrast to what Democrats, like Governor Andrew Cuomo, believe.
During the 3-minute and 26-second speech, Zeldin said he has seen “amazing Americans in action,” but only mentioned his law enforcement family and how he was deployed to Iraq as an 82nd Airborne paratrooper and now serves in the Army Reserve.
Instead, he focused on “the every day heroes who serve for the greater good. Farmers, truckers, craftsman. These heroes keep America running and President Trump fights for them everyday,” he said.
Tonight, as we celebrated America as a Land of Heroes, it was an honor to address America from a VFW post of heroes in Westhampton Beach, New York. Here is my full speech from tonight’s #RNC2020: pic.twitter.com/dAZNhxU9jn
— Lee Zeldin (@leezeldin) August 27, 2020
“This year we’ve especially relied on one particular group of heroes; frontline medical workers,” Zeldin said. They were the people he was thinking of when COVID-19 and the personal protective equipment shortage hit. He spoke how it was medical workers who saved his twin girls, born over 14 weeks early, one of whom suffered a stroke at 2 weeks old.
Zeldin said he and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law who serves as a senior advisor at the White House, were on the phone late into a Saturday night discussing the issue.
“The very next time, President Trump announced he was sending 200,000 N95 masks. He actually delivered almost 400,000. That number quickly grew to 1.2 million, masks, gowns and more.”
Zeldin pointed out how the president sent thousands of ventilators to New York, deployed USS Comfort and converted the Javits Center into a field hospital. “His administration authorized lab testing requests at blinding speed,” he added.
“For our nation to emerge even stronger, more prosperous, freer and more secure than ever, to make our country greater than before, we must reelect President Trump,” he said. “Keeping America great is up to us. And losing is not an option.”