“If the Republicans are not going to welcome union workers with open arms, we’re just going to take your party over!”
That was the closing attorney and Donald J. Trump Kings County Republican Club founder Jimmy Wagner delivered on Sunday night to a banquet hall packed with Republicans. The spiffily dressed crowd was gathered for the Queens Village Republican Club’s annual Lincoln Dinner, where Wagner was honored with a Legal Advocate for All New Yorkers award.
Wagner didn’t arrive alone. He was accompanied by enough members and supporters of the DJT Club to take up a few tables—and fill the hall with cheers and applause as Wagner spoke. He, in turn, hailed the teachers among them who had been put out of work for declining to comply with the NYC Department of Education’s 2021 COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Wagner represented them in lawsuits against the DOE and the City, including a group of cases that went all the way to the state’s highest court. The resulting Court of Appeals decision in Clarke et al. v. Board of Education of the City School District of New York City et al. eroded New York’s longstanding teacher tenure laws.
The court ruled against Clarke and the other tenured teachers in the suit, finding that the Board of Education could impose any new condition of employment on tenured, union-contracted teachers and fire them without due process for failing to meet it. Wagner excoriated the decision, the court, and unions who failed to back their members in his speech, bringing DJT Club supporters to their feet with applause.
The Clarke decision was a catalyst in the formation of the club, which backed the lead plaintiff, Athena Clarke, in her 2025 City Council run. Since its founding, the DJT Club has supported numerous other candidates and become a hub of activity for grassroots Republicans, including many Brooklynites who defected from the Democratic Party in the wake of New York City’s COVID policy impacts.
DJT Club’s New “We Reform NYC” Push
Now the club is networking with the Queens Republicans and others, aiming to build a new Republican-led movement that will get behind union workers, push for reforms to New York’s electoral and judiciary systems, and deliver the redress to COVID policy dissidents that hasn’t come from New York’s courts.
At the Lincoln Dinner, the DJT Club distributed a flyer outlining its 10-point plan to make reforms by amending the New York City Charter. It’s aiming to collect 50,000 petition signatures to get the reforms on the ballot. Details of the proposals are laid out on the We Reform NYC website.
Other speakers at the Lincoln Dinner included Republican gubernatorial and state attorney general candidates Bruce Blakeman and Saritha Komatireddy, along with journalist Lara Logan, attorney John Eastman, artist Scott LoBaido, rapper DVS 7.0 and a young Republican student, Massimo Guerriero.
In an election year when a recent poll showed that a majority of New Yorkers haven’t even heard of Blakeman and Republicans face daunting odds all the way down the ballot, Jimmy Wagner didn’t put too fine a point on his message for them: “The New York State Republican Party needs to embrace the union workers or you will continue to lose every election in this state.”
Watch all of the Queens Village Republican Club Lincoln Dinner speakers (and dancers!):
