POUGHKEEPSIE – Republican television pundit Joe Pinion has announced his intention to be the GOP candidate challenging Senator Chuck Schumer in the November election. The 38-year-old former Colgate University football star is the former host of his own Newsmax show, “Saturday Agenda”.
Pinion met with Mid-Hudson News in Poughkeepsie on Tuesday to provide an overview of his ambitious campaign. Pinion, an African American, labeled Schumer as a “career politician” who no longer places the concerns of New York residents as his first priority.
“Chuck Schumer, he no longer represents the 19 million New Yorkers. The Schumer from 1988 no longer exists,” he said. “What we have now is somebody who is so concerned with holding on to power that he has forgotten to empower the people who have placed their trust in his hands. For me, we want to reinvite the people to this conversation.”
Pinion, who was born and raised in Yonkers, announced his campaign on January 17.
When asked about overcoming Schumer’s substantial campaign funds, he plans to use a grassroots campaign of ordinary people to give small donations to return their voice to Washington. “We just have to raise enough money to get our voice out there.”
Moving to reforms in criminal justice, Pinion blamed Schumer for the 2021 attack on law enforcement, calling last year “The most dangerous year in our history to wear a badge,” noting that 476 police officers were killed in the line of duty in 2021. Pinion blames those deaths on the outcome of what he says is the dangerous movement known as “Defund the Police.” He put the blame directly on the leader of the Senate. “Chuck Schumer is supposed to be the adult at the table in Washington. Instead, he allowed children to hijack the national conversation about justice reform, and people died as a result.”
Dutchess County GOP Chairman Michael McCormack said that he has the “full confidence in his (Pinion’s) ability to be the right person for the current times we live in to become our United States Senator representing New York State. Now more than ever we need a change in Washington DC because what is going on there now is not working for the people of our United States.”
The chairman said Pinion “will be a positive force for getting our country on the correct path to world respect and domestic prosperity. Both of which are sorely lacking in the current DC Democratic leadership.”
