The Department of Government Efficiency continues chugging along and finding massive amounts of fraud, waste, and abuse as it does so, as do other Trump agencies, such as the Lee Zeldin-headed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), yet the mainstream media has remained adamant that no such fraud exists or has been found. That led Administrator Zeldin to go nuclear on a New York Times reporter for covering up the massive fraud.
That incident occured on Monday, April 21, when Administrator Zeldin gave a press conference on the direction the EPA is taking with him at a helm. During the press conference, one of the NYT hacks in the room claimed that he had presented “no evidence” to support his claims of massive, Biden-era waste, fraud, and abuse.
Commenting during his original remarks on the fraud and waste in the EPA’s spending under Biden, Administrator Zeldin said, “As we overturn different rocks and we find more evidence of waste and abuse, there are some members of the media who have dug in further into saying that there’s no evidence.”
Continuing, he noted that the media has remained totally insouciant about the fraud scandal of epic proportions, saying, “Every time a new piece of evidence comes out, there’s some in the media saying even with more conviction that there’s no evidence.” He added, by way of example, that there was immense “self-dealing and conflicts of interest, unqualified recipients and reduced oversight” in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a Biden-era program, yet they media has done nothing to cover it.
Zelding later called on the reporters in the room to justify their claim that there is no evidence of fraud, asking, “If anyone can defend, please, just like, how is that zero evidence?” He added, “And now we are all together. I’m glad that we are. It’s April 21st, 2025. Why should any story get written that says no evidence?”
That’s when the NYT hack, Lisa Friedman, chimed in and asked, “Where has a judge said that this is a problem?” He started snapping back, “Lisa, if The New York Times is going to write that there is no evidence…” She then insisted that the NYT claim was more specific, saying, “We’ve written that judges have not found.”
Zeldin dropped a truth nuke on her by quoting her own words agains her, saying, “’Over the last few months, Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has made explosive—you know this because you wrote it—has made explosive accusations against the Biden administration, accusing it of ‘insane’ malfeasance in its handling of $20 billion in climate grants. Now, as a legal battle ensues over those funds, many of Mr. Zeldin’s claims remain unsupported, and some are flat-out false.”’ He then asked, “Why wouldn’t you write that there is any evidence?”
"*" indicates required fields
Friedman snapped back, “Could you point us to where a judge has found that there’s waste?” Zeldin had a verbal counterattack of her own, saying, “It’s not that easy for you, Lisa. See, because you guys are writing stories. These are your words. These aren’t the judge’s words.” He added, “If you continue to write these stories that say that there is no evidence, even though I can stand before you right now and just go through the list, how do you square that?”
Watch them here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video