Exclusive— Rep. Lee Zeldin: Gov. Kathy Hochul, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Are 'Prioritizing' Criminals over 'Law-Abiding Citizens'

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg prioritize criminals over law-abiding citizens, Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), a Republican candidate for governor in New York, said on Tuesday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with special guest host Jerome Hudson.

Zeldin remarked on Bragg’s recently imposed left-wing decrees to reform arrest and sentencing policies. Breitbart News reported, “Newly-installed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg instructed staff on Monday that his office will not seek pre-trial detention or prison sentences for crimes other than homicide, public corruption, and a few other exceptional cases.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg-elect, a former top deputy to New York’s attorney general, speaks to supporters in New York, Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Zeldin stated, “The New York State Constitution gives the governor of the state of New York the authority to remove a district attorney if they refuse to enforce the law. It’s in the New York State Constitution. I called on Gov. Hochul — the person who took over as governor after Andrew Cuomo stepped aside — called on Gov. Hochul, local, to remove Alvin Bragg.”

“If I was the governor today, I’d be pursuing that myself because any district attorney — if you want to run to be the district attorney — you’re running to enforce the law,” he added. “If you want to back up the criminals and keep them out of prison instead, go be a defense attorney.”

He continued, “You have a job to do when you take an oath that you’re going to enforce the law, and when you are the DA, that doesn’t stand for ‘defense attorney.’ That’s ‘district attorney.’ You have a job to prosecute when crimes are committed. You have to have the back of NYPD when they’re doing their jobs. You have to have the back of law-abiding citizens, not prioritizing, instead, the criminals.”

Bragg’s arrest and sentencing policies will incentivize criminality relative to the previous status quo, Zeldin warned.

Kathy Hochul speaks onstage during Global Citizen Live, New York on September 25, 2021, in New York City. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Global Citizen)

He said, “If you’re waking up this morning in New York City and you want to go break some laws and get away with it, under that new memo, you can commit whatever type of traffic infractions you want around the city. You can fare-jump, not pay your fare, go ride the subway for a while. If some cop somewhere stops you, you can resist arrest, and you’re not going to be prosecuted for that. The list goes on of all sorts of different crimes that the district attorney is saying, ‘I’m not even going to prosecute at all,’ and then there’s a whole bunch of other crimes in that memo saying that an armed robbery is going to be prosecuted as a petty larceny.”