I ran into Alison Esposito, the very impressive Republican candidate for New York's 18th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, at a West Point football game recently, and she kindly agreed to answer questions for our readers.
Esposito is a native of the Hudson Valley district she's running to represent. She's a graduate of the SUNY university system, CUNY's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and the FBI National Academy, a leadership school for high-performing law enforcement executives. She followed in the footsteps of her father, past NYPD Chief Michael Esposito, and was on track to become a Big Apple top cop herself, until she answered the call to serve her home state in a different capacity.
Then-Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) tapped Esposito to be his running mate in the 2022 election for New York Governor. Though the pair was ultimately defeated by Democrat Kathy Hochul's ticket, it was the smallest Democrat victory since the 1982 New York gubernatorial election. Esposito realized the potential for her to serve in her home district and became the 2024 Republican nominee for the seat currently held by Democrat Pat Ryan.
Esposito's website says that during the 2022 gubernatorial race,
Alison traveled to all 62 counties and heard from New Yorkers from all walks of life who were fed up with the outsized power of one-party Democrat rule in Washington, D.C., Albany, and New York City."
Now, Alison is committed to harnessing the energy of the commonsense wave, which brought New Yorkers from all walks of life and political ideologies together with the common purpose of putting the needs of their families and creating a better way of life before their political backgrounds.
Alison has witnessed fatally flawed pro-criminal policies like cashless bail, an ever-growing migrant crisis overtaking our country, a fatal fentanyl crisis, sky high inflation, and rogue District Attorneys refusing to enforce the law, contributing to our cities and states becoming less safe.
That must surely be music to most New Yorkers' ears. Esposito's campaign ad makes a clean, solid argument for why she is the common-sense, law-and-order choice:
Esposito struck me as keenly intelligent as well as shrewd. She exhibits the kind of bracing moral certainty that can be found among talented law enforcement professionals, and that only comes from having a moral core. And she clearly packs the courage and the energy to back those ideals up. New York's Hudson Valley is blessed to have such an excellent choice, so voting for Esposito isn't so much a partisan chore as a patriotic pleasure.
Here is the transcript of our conversation. (Note: very minimal edits were made for clarity.)
AT: What are you running for, Alison?
AE: I’m running for United States Congress up here in the Hudson Valley, the 18th district, which covers Orange, Ulster, and Duchess, against Pat Ryan.
AT: I've seen his commercials, and like you were saying, he is a West Point grad, and it's a very cute commercial.
AE: It’s a very cute commercial, but he stands on progressive policies that are America-last. He is a sanctuary city guy, and he, like I said, he calls weapons — even in the hands of cops — "weapons of war." He wants to strip any military surplus…
AT: How do these people get into West Point?
AE: I actually went to the southern border to see the carnage myself, and I ended up going with one of his classmates, who said he's always been leftist, progressive, woke ideology. You saw it even — we had a debate the other night, and I was standing on actual votes that he took that were against America's best interest, and he was standing on, "I'm a West Point grad, I’m a father," but he had no policy.
AT: Do you know, what it reminds me of is Tim Walz. It's the same kind of thing. It's like he's wearing this nice American man skin, but he's really this communist.
AE: Well, I thank him for his service, because it takes a lot to don that uniform.
AT: And I thank you for your law enforcement service. And I love your commercial. This is obviously a very biased interview [laughs], but that's what we do in the media.
AE: All his campaign is doing is putting lies out about me, whether it's about an attack on my service, or whether it's a lie about my stance on abortion. He has to make this about abortion because he has no policy…
AT: That's what they're all doing. It's the same in a lot of blue states, you know? And it's not even an issue there.
AE: It's not an issue in New York, either. It’s a complete lie. It's a state's rights issue now. I'm a federal candidate. I cannot and will not affect any law in New York State, which is codified well beyond the protections of Roe.
AT: Well, you know, they think you're going to do a national ban.
AE: No, I don't advocate — and I say it over and over again — I believe it's a states’ rights issue, and I don't advocate, nor will I vote for a federal national abortion ban.
And I'm very clear, you know, and of course, I mean, it's a nuanced and very difficult discussion to have. And of course, when you're talking rape, incest, life of the mother, I'm never going to tell a woman that she has to orphan two children in order to deliver a baby, or an 11-year-old rape victim that she has to destroy herself. It's ridiculous.
What I do advocate for is empowering women with financial resources, Child Tax Credit, emotional support, mental health support, so that when you're making a very difficult decision, you don't feel that it's your only option to abort.
AT: Your life is not over.
AE: Right! And I fully support contraception, IVF, adoption. You know, this is how a lot of my friends ended up experiencing the joy of parenthood.
AT: Will you tell us about your law enforcement background?
AE: I have 25 years in the NYPD. I never thought I was leaving. I served in a multitude of assignments, whether it was on a SWAT rescue team, in a gang unit, as commander of multiple detective squads, commander of multiple police precincts. I retired as the Deputy Inspector and Commanding Officer of our house in Brooklyn — the 70th police precinct — and I never wanted to leave.
But Lee Zeldin, the gubernatorial candidate, asked me to be his running mate. I was the lieutenant governor candidate with Lee.
AT: I remember him! He was awesome. That gave them a shock, that you guys got so close.
AE: Yes, we worked really hard, up and down the state, in cities, out of cities, upstate, downstate, rural, suburban, we heard the same thing: "Please help us — my grandbabies are not going to live here because my kids can't afford to live here." "Please help us — the attack on energy and the electric vehicle mandates are going to force us out of business." "Please help us — I can't afford to harvest the crop that I'm planting." "Please help us — the attack on children's education and attack on the regulations on small businesses, where we can't survive." And I made a commitment to these people all up and down the state, so I had to figure out how to serve. And it happens that in this district — I grew up in Orange County, I built my home here 20 years ago — we left it on the table. Pat Ryan eked out a victory by a point and a half. Lee Zeldin and I won this seat by three points. They won the district. He should not have won. I don't know where the miscommunication happened, but I'm coming back. I don't know what happened.
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AT: And to talk about sanctuary towns, I haven't been in most of these towns in years, but I remember seeing Haverstraw, for example, like completely taken over.
AE: Pat Ryan was the Ulster County Executive before he was a congressman. He made Ulster County a sanctuary county. He refused to cooperate with ICE and law enforcement. He defunded his own SWAT team.
While I was in the “mostly peaceful” protests, aka riots, of 2020, having Molotov cocktails and incendiary devices thrown at us — I got hit in the head with a kitchen cabinet that came off a roof — he was marching with the "defund the police" crowd, in protest, screaming at the police. What are you thinking, you know?
AT: If you are elected, will you be caucusing with the Freedom Caucus?
AE: No, I don't — I haven't really given much thought to who I will be caucusing with. I want to be a member of Congress that serves my district, my state, and my country, and does what's best for my district, my state, and my country. So I'm going to make sure that we're bringing common sense, middle-of-the-road approaches, because when we concentrate on what divides us rather than what unites us as Americans, then the ship is spinning. Only one side is paddling. And if we're gonna right the ship and go, both sides have to be working.
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