Congressman Lee Zeldin takes the stage during his stump speech, before an alleged attack on him, in Fairport, New York, U.S., July 21, 2022. Ian Winner/Handout via REUTERS
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Critics called out a New York Times headline for making the news about the release without bail of Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin’s attacker more a story about how the GOP is aggressively going after bail laws in New York allegedly for political gain.
After the suspect who tried to maim and/or kill Rep. Zeldin, R-N.Y., during a campaign speech Thursday was released from jail just hours later without bail, the New York Times wrote an article titled, “GOP Assails NY Bail Laws After Release of Suspect in Zeldin Attack”.
Twitter users slammed the report, claiming it was just another iteration of the “Republicans jump” line of attack that left-leaning journalists have used to smear conservatives as overzealous in the their reactions to political incidents.
The text of the article read: “An attempted assault on Rep. Lee Zeldin, the Republican candidate for governor of New York, sparked a fierce debate over the state’s public safety laws on Friday, hours after a man accused of charging the candidate with a gun was released without bail.”
ALLEGED LEE ZELDIN ATTACK Charged with Felony, Released Immediately as Congressman Predicted
The piece added: “But he [Zeldin] and his allies argued Friday that the episode viscerally drove the need to beef up police and toughen New York’s bail laws to make it easier for judges to hold people accused of certain crimes.”
He continued to make the tone that Zeldin and the Republicans were aggressively politicizing this attack on the congressman and spinning it for political advantage. “Republicans wasted little time in claiming that the raid — and the release of Mr. Jakubonis — demonstrated the failure of the bail law enacted by Democrats in recent years. And they also sought to use it to gain an advantage in the New York congressional races.”
Conservatives on Twitter seemed displeased with the Times’ tone.
NewsBusters Editor-in-Chief Curtis Houck chided the channel, tweeting: “‘GOP Assails NY Bail Laws’. I guess this is the new jump and take?”
The Dispatch’s managing editor Rachael Larimore shared Houck’s tweet on her page and added her own comment, tweeting: “Good news everyone. The NYT came up for a thesaurus.”
LEE ZELDIN SAYS black belt training helped him get rid of attacker: ‘That was pretty crazy’
Rep. Lee Zeldin, RNY, was attacked during a gubernatorial campaign stop in Perinton, New York, Thursday night, where an individual allegedly pulled out a sharp object. (Ian winner)
Conservative pundit Mary Katherine Ham tweeted a fake headline mocking the exit. “Republicans pour leniency toward friend who lashed out at Republican,” he wrote.
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Florida Department of Health Press Secretary Jeremy Redfern criticized the article for referring to the attack on Zeldin as an “incident” in its caption. He tweeted: “‘The incident’. So wasn’t this an attack on democracy?”
The Republican representative to governor of New York, Lee Zeldin, was attacked by a man with a gun during an election campaign on Thursday night. (Zeldin Campaign)
Gabriel Hays is an associate editor at Fox News. Follow him on Twitter at @gabrieljhays.