Santos quits GOP as party leaders fall in line with Trump before primary
Nassau County GOP chairman Joe Cairo, left, and Suffolk GOP chairman Jesse Garcia. Credit: Chris Ware, Newsday / Thomas A. Ferrara
Daily Point
LI GOP bosses believe in MAGA magic
On the eve of early voting in New York’s no-contest presidential primaries, the Suffolk and Nassau Republican county chairmen have seen fit to proclaim support for Donald Trump, endorsing the ex-president Friday with a bit of the apocalyptic spin that Trump uses.
“We all know the stakes,” Suffolk GOP chairman Jesse Garcia said in a joint endorsement statement. “Americans from all walks of life are waking up to the nightmare of Democrat rule … The Suffolk County Republican Committee looks forward to doing its part to take back the White House and save this great country.”
“The future of our nation is on the ballot this November,” Nassau GOP chairman Joe Cairo says in the statement. “Our nation is facing unprecedented dangers abroad and at home … Our world was a safer place under Donald Trump. We need President Trump today more than ever.”
“Savior” rhetoric aside, these curtsies to Trump, who lost in 2020 but not on Long Island, come with vows of fealty to him, a staple of GOP congressional primaries. In Cairo’s domain, insurgent 3rd Congressional District candidate Greg Hach has worked to paint the organization-preferred Mike LiPetri as less than supportive of MAGA. LiPetri worked as a lawyer for New York City government when Bill de Blasio was mayor but later blasted him.
On Wednesday, as if in response, Cairo called LiPetri to the stage at the Nassau GOP’s annual “Patriots’ Dinner” and then asked whether the county supports Trump — prompting a shout of “yeah!” from the candidate, a former assemblyman, according to one party loyalist who attended.
Michael Sapraicone, the designated GOP candidate for U.S. Senate against incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand, came under fire from rivals for having once contributed to Democratic Attorney General Letitia James, whose successful lawsuit against the Trump organization has made her a special target of his party’s condemnation. Sapraicone, too, has emphatically endorsed Trump.
Clinging to Trump also becomes a factor in the strange ambitions of the expelled and indicted George Santos, who says he’s gathering petitions to oppose Rep. Nick LaLota in CD1. After his former colleagues in the House passed a bill avoiding a government shutdown, prompting another GOP mutiny in Washington, Santos announced that he will run not as an insurgent Republican but as an “independent” candidate.
Posting his announcement on X, formerly Twitter, Santos cited his “Ultra MAGA / Trump supporting values.” Getting on the ballot, however, will require an evidently steep 3,500 valid petition signatures with a filing deadline of between May 21 and May 28. Garcia quipped to The Point: “As always we will be evaluating his petitions and I think they will have the same validity as his degree from Baruch College.”
Garcia said the Trump endorsement was a foregone conclusion but timed Friday to “maximize the impact on early voting that starts tomorrow.” That voting runs until March 30 for the April 2 primary for both major parties. GOP leaders will want to dodge any strong showings, as had taken place recently in other states, from the vestigial presence of Nikki Haley, Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy on the ballot.
— Dan Janison dan.janison@newsday.com, Rita Ciolli rita.ciolli@newsday.com
Pencil Point
Drawing a blank
Credit: Columbia Missourian/John Darkow
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Final Point
A new GOP detractor aims at Garbarino
The campaign flyer of Shannon Emily Stephens, who is challenging Rep. Andrew Garbarino in the 2nd Congressional District Republican primary.
Among the season’s Republican primary insurgencies for Congress, the least publicized on Long Island so far is the intraparty challenge to second-term Rep. Andrew Garbarino in CD2.
Candidate Shannon Emily Stephens, 28, from Bayport, acknowledges having little money on hand and is relying on a small crew of volunteers to gather the 1,250 valid signatures on petitions that must be submitted between April 1 and April 4 to qualify for the ballot.
In public forums, she’s been attacking Garbarino and others in a way that risks having Republican voters find her too hyperbolic to be credible. She calls the influx of migrants across the southern border a deliberate “invasion,” replete with “military agents from nations that hate America.” She has talked about the U.S. government “taking your tax dollars and sending them over to Ukraine so they can buy yachts and other fancy things.”
On her campaign website she says: “The destruction and devastation of our country at the hands of the socialist left sickens me as I watch our beloved rights stolen by a corrupt and immoral system. Many have chosen to flee; I have chosen to stay and fight.”
Stephens said in a recent appearance recorded on YouTube that Garbarino “has gone down to Washington D.C. and he has sold us out every chance he’s gotten. He votes to impeach Trump. He votes against the Second Amendment …”
But in fact, Garbarino voted “No” on impeaching Trump and literally, nobody can “vote against the Second Amendment.”
For the impeachment that followed the bloody fiasco of Jan. 6, 2021, rookie Garbarino stated: “While I fully condemn the domestic terrorists that stormed the Capitol last Wednesday, and I believe the President bears some responsibility, I ultimately cannot and will not vote to impeach.”
Stephens, however, stood by all her statements Thursday when contacted by The Point. She argued that impeachment was the inherent goal of the Jan. 6 investigation he’d supported for Congress. Yet at the time, Garbarino actually voiced Republican demands that alleged security blunders by Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi be among the matters probed.
Stephens also goes so far as to condemn limited, consensual gun-control measures such as red-flag laws as an attack on Second Amendment rights, and slams Long Island’s Republican House members for opposing Jim Jordan’s bid for House speaker.
For about a year, Stephens, a 2020 graduate of St. John’s Law School, worked as a prosecutor in the office of Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz. She says she resigned because of her opposition to COVID-19 vaccine requirements and the negative impact of state bail reform. Around that time, Stephens posted a tweet that Katz later said did not reflect the views of her office.
A sample of Stephens’ barbed tweet: “All crime is fine in NYC but if you don’t have a mask, well it’s probably the guillotine for you. You will still get covid because that’s Führer Fauci’s goal, but get more boosters anyway because they won’t work but it doesn’t matter … you must all hide in fear of a germ because the government says so.”
While largely unknown, Stephens isn’t without her fans. Mike Rakebrandt, one of two GOP rivals to Garbarino in the 2022 primary, noted that Stephens helped represent him in litigation over his candidacy. He told The Point: “She did an exceptional job. She’s a very bright attorney.” And, he supports her election bid.
— Dan Janison dan.janison@newsday.com
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