Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin appeared on Fox News Monday to urge “Democrats out of power” to condemn and distance themselves from a growing wave of politically motivated threats and violence.
In 2022, then-Republican New York gubernatorial candidate Zeldin experienced political violence when a shooting occurred just outside his Long Island home while his teenage daughters were inside. During an appearance on “The Ingraham Angle,” Zeldin said the climate of political hatred is becoming dangerously normalized.
“There’s an attempt right now to try to figure out how to oppose President Trump and the right. There are people out of power right now, and they’re flailing. They can’t figure out the right names to call, the right tactics to use, and they’re getting more and more extreme,” Zeldin said. “There’s not a more important moment than right now for these Democrats who are out of power to be sending that message that this is from the fringe, zero tolerance, it won’t be normalized, and if you are following me, that leader, you make it very clear that this is not welcome in this society in this moment.”
Zeldin also urged leaders to reject fringe influences.
“This needs to be treated as the fringe. And there are people who are in politics who have individuals across the country who follow them,” Zeldin told host Laura Ingraham when asked about his reaction to the ramped-up violence. “And these people in office have been following those people instead of leading them. This comes from the fringe. It needs to be treated as from the fringe, and it needs to be treated with zero tolerance.”
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Zeldin warned that public figures like journalist Taylor Lorenz are “feeding into” extremist narratives by engaging in provocative rhetoric online, drawing dangerous attention and amplifying instability. Lorenz, a former Washington Post columnist, called accused murderer Luigi Mangione “morally good” and “handsome” during a CNN special Sunday while discussing his appeal to women with reporter Donie O’Sullivan.
“There’s a lot of clickbait. You played the clip by Taylor Lorenz, and maybe she gets more following. People who might be followers of this assassin might now start following Taylor Lorenz, so she feeds into it, and it normalizes it,” Zeldin said. “And we shouldn’t be trying to make assassinations great again in this country. It should be something that’s identified as a 10 crazy on the matrix. Whether it’s coming from the right or the left, if you’re a leader in government, if you’re a leader at all, you should be leading those people who follow you as opposed to being led by them.”
Police in Altoona, Pa. arrested Mangione in December 2024 after a five-day manhunt, following the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel. Attorney General Pam Bondi said on April 1 that the federal government will pursue the death penalty against Mangione if he’s convicted on federal charges related to Thompson’s killing.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/Fox News)
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