NASSAU COUNTY, N.Y. — On Aug. 14, Republican nominee to represent New York state in the U.S. Senate Joe Pinion — who is vying to unseat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in 2024 — and conservative activist Scott Presler attended a rally at Eisenhower Park in Long Island in support of former president Donald Trump following the raid of his Mar-a-Lago estate by the FBI on Aug. 8.
“Our principles are under attack, and if we don’t stand up now the nation that we love will no longer exist,” Pinion told Vision Times.
Pinion, who previously served as Chair of the Conservative Color Coalition, and who also previously served as the Outreach Director for the New York Young Republican Federation announced his bid for U.S. Senate on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jan. 17, this year.
The senator-hopeful is an active political news commentator who has appeared regularly on prominent news networks and talk shows, most recently hosting his own show “Saturday Agenda” on Newsmax.
Speaking with a Vision Times reporter, Pinion addressed Schumer’s long career in U.S. politics saying, “They say that after 42-years in D.C., 24 in the United States Senate, what he has done in our name is an abomination and if we come together as one people, left, right and everywhere in between, we’re going to have a country that is recognizable again,” adding that, “and we are going to keep America first, not just for ourselves but for every American that comes after.”
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A core issue of Pinion’s platform addresses soaring crime in New York state, the responsibility for which he lays directly at the feet of Chuck Schumer.
“You saw a 90 percent increase in shootings in New York City. We saw in many ways a 30 percent increase in homicides all because of the three most dangerous words ever uttered in modern politics: defund the police,” Pinion recently said on Fox Business’s “Mornings with Maria Bartiromo.”
Pinion was perhaps referring to a 2020 GOP resolution that was blocked by Schumer that opposed the “defund the police” movement. The resolution, introduced by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark), sought two things: “justice for George Floyd” and to oppose “efforts to defund the police.”
Schumer defended his actions saying the resolution was nothing more than rhetoric and demanded “real action, not rhetoric,” saying that the resolution would do nothing and would not alter any laws.
Being the change
In attendance was Scott Presler, a Republican activist and former regional Field Director for the Republican Party of Virginia who enthusiastically spoke about his political career and encouraged everyone to get out and vote this November.
Presler told Vision Times, “I’m here on Long Island and I’m supporting president Trump and my message to you that are listening right now is if you’re unhappy with how things are going in America then you need to vote this November.”
Presler, who graduated from George Mason University with an honors in Criminal Justice, is an avid supporter of former president Trump who says that his personal “inaction” inspired him to get active in politics.
“I realized that, if I only complain, if I only whine, then I’m a part of the problem,” he told Vision Times adding that, “ I started volunteering in politics because I wanted to actually be the change that I wanted to see in the world, and so I volunteered, I fell in love with it and I turned politics into a career.”
“If you’re unhappy with gas prices and inflation and not having the choice of whether or not to put a medical substance into your body then I’m asking that you vote this November and that you vote conservatively,” he told Vision Times.
He is known for filing an August 2018 lawsuit against Cheryl Turpin in the Virginia Beach Circuit Court. Turpin served as the delegate in the Virginia House of Delegates for the 85th district representing a part of Virginia Beach from 2018 to 2020.
In his lawsuit Presler alleged that campaign ads, distributed by Turpin, falsely linked him to neo-Nazis and called him the leader of a hate group. Presler said he received numerous death threats due to the ad campaign.
Presler is perhaps best known for his efforts to literally “clean up” Democrat-run cities. In Sept. 2019, the Dailywire, a popular conservative news outlet, published an article highlighting Presler’s efforts in West Baltimore where he and hundreds of volunteers descended on the city to pick up trash in the streets. Presler says he was inspired by tweets sent by then-president Donald Trump who brought focus to the city’s trash problems.
He later expanded the operation to include other Democrat-run communities including Newark, New Jersey and Virginia Beach, Virginia.
He regularly broadcast his progress during the clean-up efforts tweeting at the time, “I hope I make you proud, mom & dad,” and “In Baltimore, we cleaned up 19 tons of trash. In Los Angeles, we cleaned up 50 tons of trash.”
