At His Rockland Rally, Lawler Jumps Off The Fence Into Trump Territory
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By Barrett Seaman—
After a year or more avoiding so much as the mention of the President’s name, while voting for all of his major policy bills, incumbent Republican Congressman Mike Lawler finally stepped off the tightrope, landing resoundingly inside Trump’s camp. At a rally attended by more than 4,000 of the MAGA faithful at Suffern’s Rockland Community College Friday, Lawler declared, “I am proud to be here today for President Donald Trump.”
That wholehearted embrace, indeed Trump’s very presence in New York’s 17th Congressional District, is an indication of just how close Lawler’s race against one of several Democrats vying to take his seat in November is expected to be. Given the President’s record-low approval ratings, it was also a very risky move for the three-term Representative, with the potential of being politically existential.
The venue was a natural choice for Lawler, as the southwestern quadrant of Rockland is the molten-hot core of Trump’s conservative MAGA base in the Hudson Valley. In addition to a heavy presence of construction workers, law enforcement and veterans’ families, the communities surrounding Suffern, including Ramapo and Monsey, are home to a large contingent of Orthodox Jews, who in the last election gave Trump and Lawler 97% of their votes. Before and after Marine One delivered the President to the Eugene Levy Fieldhouse, several hundred Hasidim lined the roadside leading to the college, looking for a glimpse of their hero
Hours before the event began, there were anti-Trump protest demonstrations by groups including the NAACP, immigration, voting rights and other activists opposed to Trump’s policies. These, Lawler dismissed as irrelevant. “If you want to get anything done,” he said in his remarks before Trump arrived, “you have to be in the arena … You have to have a seat at the table.”
The centerpiece theme of the rally was tax relief. Warm-up speakers, including district residents, Nassau County Executive and GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik, all touted the tax savings generated by the “Big Beautiful Pax Bill.” Many mentioned the restoration of the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction and the new no-tax policy on tips and overtime for hourly workers. All of these were designed to counter the drumbeat of “fake news” reporting of high inflation tied to Trump’s tariff policy and more recently the Iran War.
Lawler himself regaled the crowd with a rendition of his Oval Office meeting with Trump in which he bluntly told the President that if he didn’t go along with restoring SALT, he (Lawler) would single-handedly kill the entire tax bill. “Trump understands toughness; he understands strength,” Lawler told the crowd. “I was never going to support a tax bill that left New Yorkers behind. ‘I’ll kill your bill.’ Somewhat taken aback, according to Lawler’s reconstruction in which he did a passable rendition of Trump’s voice, the President turned to Speaker Mike Johnson and said, ‘Get Lawler all the SALT he wants.’” Trump thereafter referred to Lawler as “Mr. SALT” and even gifted him with a baseball cap emblazoned with that sobriquet.
That was the extent of difference between the two. Lawler praised Trump for delivering “the largest tax cut in American history,” claiming that “All told, the average family in this district received a tax cut well over $4,000 and for many much, much more.”
He went on to stake out positions that will clearly set him apart from any of the possible Democrats seeking his seat. He called for the re-opening of Indian Point and advocated for more nuclear power generally. He decried Governor Hochul’s policies forbidding state law enforcement from cooperating with ICE. He advocated banning “sanctuary cities and states” and fully endorsed requiring proof of citizenship to vote. He also echoed Bruce Blakeman’s call for New York State to “drill, baby, drill” and to ease regulations on the production of all forms of energy “including oil, gas and renewables.”
Starkest of the contrasts between Trump policies and those favored by Democrats came in his defense of cuts in Medicaid spending. “Don’t let anyone lie to you,” he told the crowd. “We didn’t gut Medicaid and give tax cuts to billionaires. We strengthened Medicaid by disqualifying illegal immigrants and others who are scamming the system and by requiring any able-bodied adult without dependent children to work, volunteer or to go school 20 hours a week to keep their eligibility.”
Opponents of the cuts, supported by several non-partisan agencies, including the Congressional Budget Office, say that Trump’s plan will inevitably strip coverage not just from scammers and illegal immigrants but from qualified recipients, leaving anywhere from 10 to 17 million Americans without medical insurance over the next decade. Voters may begin to see which of these scenarios is the more accurate before the November mid-terms.
Quick to claim that he has been “consistently rated as one of the most bipartisan and effective members of congress,” Lawler also bars no holds in denigrating Democrat opponents whom he described in the same speech as “tripping over each other to pander to their increasingly radical, antisemitic socialist base. They will never support Trump on anything,” he charged. They are instead “exclusively driven by anger and even hatred on a level that is turning up on our politics to a very dangerous level.”
Lawler’s Rockland speech, while combative, was distinctly more focused than that of the rally’s main attraction. Taking the stage some 40 minutes after the scheduled 3:00 p.m. slot, President Trump went on to speak for nearly 90 minutes. He was introduced by New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart, apparently a supporter. Trump predicted Dart would be “a future hall-of-famer” but otherwise deployed him as a contrasting prop in his critique of transgendered males playing on girls’ sports teams, an idea abhorrent to the President.
Trump’s train of thought delivery was twice interrupted for pre-planned acknowledgements of two former residents of the district killed under tragic circumstances: former Wall Street trader and volunteer fireman, Nyack native Welles Crowther, the “Man on the Red Bandana” credited with saving dozens of lives as the South Tower of the World Trade Center burned on 9/11, only to lose his own when the building collapsed; Sheridan Gorman of Yorktown, shot dead in Chicago, apparently by an illegal immigrant—someone “whose kindness, leadership, and compassion left a lasting impact on everyone who knew her.”
Otherwise, in a pattern that has grown familiar to Americans, the President’s address brushed briefly on specific policy issues before descending into a series of exuberant claims of success coupled with angry condemnations of deplorable conditions created by Democrats, whom he called “dumacrats,” as in “dumb” Democrats.
Things worthy of praise:
The economy–(“We’re blowing it away” as evidenced by the Dow Jones hitting 50,700 that afternoon)
Tariffs—They’re bringing the deficit down dramatically and causing foreign companies to build plants in the U.S.
Melania’s film, “Melania”—It was number one
Defeat of political foes in primaries—Good riddance to Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, Texas Senator John Cornyn and Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie
His own intelligence—claims he “aced” cognitive test on three separate occasions
Transgender mutilization (sic)—We don’t want that
That which is unworthy:
High taxes in Blue states—wealthy people are fleeing New York and California
Conditions in Blue cities—streets are dirty; crime is rampant; illegal aliens all over; people are getting shot; elections are rigged; in stores, toothbrushes are locked in glass so only the sales clerk can open them
Iran—Their military has been obliterated and they’re desperate to make a deal
The Rockland rally may prove to be an inflection point in the mid-term election, as CD-17 remains an anticipated tipping point in determining which party controls the House come January 2027. Now that Mike Lawler has tipped his hand, voters will decide whether that helps him hold his office or lose it because of his ties to Donald Trump.
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