By:  Ilana Siyance

Former New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin says Donald Trump still has a real shot at the White House, despite being indicted four times.

As reported by the NY Post, Zeldin has been traveling across the country to gauge support for the GOP party and the former Republican President.  The former Long Island congressman and top GOPer says that a lot of the country’s citizens feel the prosecutions against Trump went too far, and the efforts had the opposite of the intended effect, in making the embattled billionaire and business tycoon into even more of a contender.

“Absolutely Trump can win. The indictments made him stronger,” said Zeldin, 43, who has been trudging state to state to help bolster Republican candidates and conservative policies.  Zeldin said for many voters, the Democratic effort to prosecute against the ex-president is backfiring, with many seeing the efforts as a political stunt and excessively one-sided. “They were set on taking down Trump at all costs. Many people see the prosecutions as political,” Zeldin told the Post. “Trump has gotten stronger — not weaker,” he added.  Zeldin said the indictments brought forth by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg over Trump’s secretive payments to porn star Stormy Daniel, and federal special prosecutor Jack Smith’s classified-documents case, both smell fishy.

Further, Zeldin also said, the 2024 incumbent, President Joe Biden, has made policy botches which helped make the case for Trump and the Republicans.   Zeldin said any candidate who wins the GOP ticket will have the advantage thanks to Biden’s lax border policy and other international fumbles.   Zeldin noted that when Biden took office, he proudly stopped construction of the wall which Trump had insisted on building and practiced an open border policy.  This has led to the migrant crisis, with asylum seekers streaming into the country.

Multiple cities including New York, are now inundated and scrambling to find funding and beds for the hundred thousand migrants who have crossed the US-Mexico border to make the Big Apple their home.  This open border policy has hurt the party’s standing even in strong Democratic states including New York and Illinois.  “The No. 1 issue I hear about is the need to secure our borders,” Zeldin said.  Of late, Democrats have started to back track in their stance.  Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul have both reversed course now saying that we have reached capacity, and trying to roll back the decades-old mandate requiring the city to house the incoming migrants.  Zeldin, who lost against Gov. Hochul by just four percentage points last year, said her shift on the migrant topic has been “embarrassing.”

Per the Post, Zeldin also pointed to Biden’s retreat from Afghanistan and his agreement on the Sept. 11 anniversary to release $6 billion of frozen Iranian assets as part of a prisoner swap deal.  He claims these acts may have been factors in emboldening Hamas to attack Israel.  “Adversaries become emboldened when we respond so poorly,” Zeldin said.  Zeldin, who is a Jew, also took the opportunity to note that the Democratic Socialists’ pro-Palestinian stance and especially their support for Hamas’ heinous attack against Israel is disgraceful.  “When we said, `Never Again’ after the Holocaust, we meant it,” Zeldin added.

Zeldin, who now runs his own consulting firm as well as a charity named Zeldin Cares, said he is not only traveling the country to bolster other GOPers in their elections, but may consider another stint in politics himself.