How Anthony D’Esposito went from cop to GOP congressman in a Biden district
‘Keep the windows down,’ New York Republican says
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Q; Your district backed Joe Biden by double digits in 2020. So what do you need from McCarthy to be able to convince voters to split their tickets next year, especially if you don’t have progress on SALT?
A: Many people feel the Democrats in New York have gone too far to the left. They’ve seen the implementation of cashless bail. They’ve seen the state legislature really try to change suburban communities into what we see in the five boroughs. I mean, many of our families moved out of the five boroughs onto Long Island because they wanted a better quality of life.
Voters see someone like me as a person with common sense. And then from leadership, we need them to have a really good understanding of what our districts are about. And I think they’re doing that.
Speaker McCarthy has already visited my district twice, Leader Scalise has visited my district twice, Whip Emmer has been to my district, and they understand that Democrats outnumber Republicans by about 80,000.
My district is very diverse. We have a corridor that is a majority-minority community. We also have one of the largest Jewish populations in the country and the Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre. The relationship that the United States has with Israel is very important in my district, and I think that’s one of the reasons the speaker recently named me to the parliamentary working group between the Knesset and the House of Representatives. He also has very limited appointments to the national Holocaust Museum, and he gave me one of those.
When it comes to legislation, we have been very clear in where we stand. [Members from] New York have been very strong allies of organized labor. When certain amendments were about to come to the floor that had a devastating effect for organized labor, we said we couldn’t support it. And listen, when it comes to the abortion issue, we have always said it’s a state issue.
Q: But are you worried that if the GOP continues to focus on cultural issues, you’ll get labeled as just another Republican?
A: Am I concerned? Yeah, obviously, the Democrats have already committed tens of millions of dollars just to New York to win the seats back. We’ll see what happens with redistricting, but I am confident that our conference from New York is going to maintain our seats and hopefully pick up one or two more.
The issues do concern me, and when I go home, I take every opportunity to talk about it. I want to talk to my neighbors and let them understand that the Republican Party of Nassau County and the Republican parties across this country are different Republican parties.
We have colleagues who come from different parts of this country, and voters sent them here to represent them, and they are doing just that. And I have voters who sent me here, and I’m going to represent their interests. Being accessible, being in the community, being the first guy off that floor on a Thursday or Friday and back to Reagan to get to JFK so that I can be at those Boy Scout events and the fire department parades and the ribbon cuttings for chamber of commerces — that’s the stuff that’s going to make the difference.
Q: George Santos has become a sort of antihero to a subset on the right. Their logic is that if liberals dislike him, he must be good. What do you make of that?
A: They don’t realize that everyone doesn’t like him.
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