Pro-QAnon NYC Council candidate boasts about violating COVID vaccine mandate at event with Rep. Zeldin
A Republican City Council candidate with a history of promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory boasted over the weekend about violating Mayor de Blasio’s indoor coronavirus vaccine mandate while at a fundraiser with GOP gubernatorial candidate and congressman Lee Zeldin, the Daily News has learned.
Mark Szuszkiewicz, the Republican nominee in the race to replace term-limited Brooklyn Councilman Mark Treyger, wrote on Instagram that he got into the Saturday fundraiser in Queens without showing proof of vaccination because he claimed the mandate doesn’t cover “private events for members only clubs.”
Along with that dubious claim, Szuszkiewicz posted a photo of himself and Zeldin at the event, which was hosted by the New York Young Republican Club to raise cash for a veterans group.
“I had the chance to meet #congressman and #republican #newyork governor candidate @leezeldin tonight,” Szuszkiewicz wrote in the caption. “Everyone had a great time.”
Mitch Schwartz, a spokesman for Mayor de Blasio, called Szuszkiewicz’s claim about exceptions to the vaccine mandate “total nonsense” and vowed to investigate.
“If you’re eating indoors at a restaurant, then you’re subject to the Key to NYC mandate,” Schwartz said. “We’ll pass along that Instagram account to our enforcement team.”
The location of Saturday’s fundraiser was not immediately known.
According to a poster from the New York Young Republican Club, the event took place at a bar in Long Island City and attendants only received details after buying tickets.
The GOP club did not return a request for comment Tuesday, and neither did Szuszkiewicz.
Zeldin, who represents parts of Long Island in the House and is a front-runner in New York’s 2022 GOP gubernatorial primary, also did not return a request for comment via a spokeswoman.
In Saturday’s Instagram post, Szuszkiewicz said he violated de Blasio’s vaccine mandate on another recent occasion.
“One place I went into the other day asked me for it to eat after I sat down and I said, ‘No, we don’t have that,’ as I continued to look at the menu and just carried on,” he wrote before urging his supporters to frequent establishments “that aren’t obeying communist illegal mandates.”
Szuszkiewicz is no stranger to controversy.
He has used his social media accounts for years to push various claims inspired by the baseless QAnon theory, which posits that Democratic and Hollywood elites are part of Satanist child sex-trafficking ring bent on undermining former President Donald Trump.
While running as a Republican for a Brooklyn Assembly seat last year, Szuszkiewicz falsely wrote on Instagram that actor Tom Hanks — a frequent target of QAnon supporters — became a Greek citizen because pedophilia is legal in the Mediterranean country (it is not).
Szuszkiewicz, who’s running against Democrat Ari Kagan in the Nov. 2 election to represent Brooklyn’s 47th Council District, has also downplayed the severity of COVID-19 and railed repeatedly against coronavirus vaccines.
The district, which includes Coney Island, Bensonhurst and Gravesend, has been represented by Democrats for more than two decades.
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