Douglas Bloomfield writes for the Jewish Journal:
At a time when most Congressional Republicans are trying to distance themselves from Donald Trump, one is behaving like a cheap clone of his party’s presidential candidate, complete with mind-numbing outrageous charges and incendiary rhetoric.
Rep. Lee Zeldin, the lone Jewish Republican in the 114th Congress, has called Barack Obama a “racist,” sounded like a Trump birther clone questioning the president’s heritage and loyalty and accused him of having “no idea what he is doing.”
Zeldin, a freshman representing New York’s first district at the eastern end of Long Island, likes to imitate his idol, Trump, by phrasing an accusation as if he’s not the one who actually made the charge.
He said the return of $400 million in frozen funds to Iran was a “cash ransom to the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism,” virtually accusing the president of treason by suggesting he “is playing for the other team.”
The charge of dual loyalty is particularly offensive coming from a Jewish congressman.
Speaker Paul Ryan’s called Trump’s attack on the Mexican heritage of Indiana-born Judge Gonzalo Curiel “the textbook definition of racist,” but Zeldin defended the mogul, telling CNN not Trump but “the president of the United States is a racist with his policies and his rhetoric.”
