Here's What Lee Zeldin Said to Adam Schiff That Caused Him to Suffer a Meltdown

Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, sparred with Senate Democrats on Wednesday on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which was expected since liberals are infuriated with Department of Government Efficiency cuts. DOGE has exposed a mountain of waste and questionable projects, most of which were used to enrich the political class.

Zeldin was not unfazed by the attacks. When asked about a grant by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the EPA administrator decided to comment on the California liberals’ wind-up, saying that it fits given that he once tried to have a career as “an aspiring fiction writer.” It sent Schiff into meltdown mode:

🚨Lee Zeldin calls Adam Schiff an “aspiring fiction writer.”

Schiff’s meltdown immediately afterwards is REMARKABLE. pic.twitter.com/Dmanpl66sb
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 21, 2025

Later, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) got into a sparring match with Zeldin, with the former being incapable of understanding that more than one person could review a grant application (via The Hill):

WATCH: EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin calls out Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse:

"You don't care about wasting tax dollars... We're not going to waste dollars just because you insist on EPA lighting taxpayer dollars on fire. The American taxpayers, they put President Trump in… pic.twitter.com/tlpKQYIsCm
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) May 21, 2025

Specifically, he pointed to a court document where EPA official Travis Voyles stated, “On February 25, 2025, I conducted an individualized review of EPA grant programs,” as well as Zeldin’s own comments that the administrator himself had conducted a grant review.
Whitehouse also said that “On May 16, DOJ [Justice Department] career lawyers … filed a pleading in federal court that conceded that you had not done individualized, grant-by-grant reviews.”
“The problem with your assertion here today is that it is belied by your own employees’ sworn statements in court and by the decision of the Department of Justice to admit that what you say isn’t true,” Whitehouse told Zeldin.
“No, you’re not grasping the fact that we would have multiple employees looking at these grants. That concept just escapes you,” Zeldin fired back.
After a back-and-forth, Zeldin said, “We’re not going to waste dollars just because you insist on EPA lighting taxpayer dollars on fire.”
“The American taxpayers, they put President Trump in office because of people like you. They have Republicans in charge of the House and Senate because of people like you, because you don’t care about 99 percent of this story,” he continued.