GOP debate includes multiple heated clashes
Candidates’ loyalty to Trump a topic at Kodak Center in Rochester
On Tuesday, New York’s four Republican gubernatorial contenders went toe-to-toe for the party’s nod in an often heated final debate that left candidates dodging jabs on issues ranging from abortion and crime to the question of where each candidate would put themselves on a scale ranging from former President Donald Trump to ex-vice President Mike Pence.
The discussion at the Kodak Center in Rochester, sponsored by the conservative network Newsmax and moderated by Eric Bolling, was the second in as many days involving U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, former Westchester County executive Rob Astorino, former White House staffer Andrew Giuliani and businessman Harry Wilson.
Despite the recent mass shooting in Buffalo that left 10 dead, none of the candidates thought it was necessary for New York to implement additional gun control measures. “New York’s gun laws go too far as it is,” said Zeldin, who claims the most institutional support within the state party.
Out of the four candidates, only Wilson identified himself as “pro-choice.” “People should have — up to the point of viability — the right to make a decision on their own,” he said.
Giuliani, the son of former New York City Mayor Rudolph
W. Giuliani, expressed his opposition to education on gender identity. “When I ended up going to the hospital to pick up my baby Grace, I had on her birth certificate the option to fill out male, female or other,” he said. “There are two genders here, ladies and gentlemen. The fact that our kids are learning that there are more is absurd.”
It was the first time Giuliani was able to participate in a debate in-person: He had to appear from remote locations for the first two GOP debates because he has said he is unvaccinated for COVID-19.
At the start of the debate, Giuliani declared his intention to make New York “the best fracking state in the country again” — the natural gas drilling process known as hydrofracking has never been broadly implemented in the state — and announced plans to eliminate property taxes for residents over 65 that make $100,000 or less annually.
On immigration, Zeldin said that the federal government should have finished construction of the U.s.-mexico border wall.
Astorino said that in New York, “non-citizens are treated better than citizens,” before adding that Zeldin, who is a member of Congress, “should be doing something” about the issue.
Zeldin took the most rhetorical blows from his opponents, and was booed loudly by audience members at one point as they castigated him for an alleged lack of vigor in his support for Trump. Zeldin was one of the ex-president’s most vocal supporters during his two impeachments, but has taken heat — particularly from Giuliani — for a 2016 CNN interview in which he said then-candidate Trump had made a racist statement against a judge overseeing a civil court case involving his company.
Among those not in the theater, Gov. Kathy Hochul — the Democratic front-runner — was a frequent target.
Citing Hochul’s seven years serving alongside former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, Zeldin said she should be fired because “she was either complicit or out to lunch on every single scandal — whether it’s the COVID-19 testing scandal, (or) the deadly nursing home order and coverup that followed.”
The Trump-to-pence scale was introduced near the end of the debate.
Giuliani, who worked in the Trump White House as special assistant to the president, was the only person to align himself squarely with the former president.
Wilson said he didn’t know how to answer the question but called himself “a limitedgovernment conservative in all respects.”
Astorino identified himself an “Astorino conservative,” before adding that he previously defended the former president on CNN.
Zeldin said it was “important to always be my own man.” He also said he’d go on to support the winner of the primary — while insisting it would be him.
Early voting continues this week in the gubernatorial and Assembly contests ahead of Tuesday’s primary day.