Long Island's 98-Year-Old Former Congressman Eats Dumplings, Hates Trump, Makes Tweets

On a recent afternoon, Lester Wolff tried to recall when, exactly, he first met John F. Kennedy. “Let me go back. It’s a little bit confused in my mind right now,” he said. His lunchtime meal — steamed dumplings and a cold Coors Light — sat mostly untouched on his kitchen table while he thought it over.

A few seconds passed, no more: It was 1960; Kennedy had not yet been elected president and Wolff was not yet in Congress. “I did an interview with him out in California,” Wolff said. “He had a great mind. I was not as much an admirer of Bobby as I was of Jack Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy had kind of a vicious streak in him.”

On the walls of Wolff’s airy, feng shui–tuned home in Muttontown, a tony Long Island village, are photographs of the presidents and historical figures he has met in his half-century of public life. There is Bobby, stumping for Wolff when he ran for Congress. There is Lyndon Johnson, clenching Wolff’s hand in the White House. There are the popes and world leaders, the legendary colleagues like Charlie Rangel and Ed Koch. There, near the bottom of his office wall, is Hillary Clinton.

Nowhere is Donald Trump.

“He is a fascist. No question in my mind,” Wolff said. “There was Hitler, there was Mussolini. Many of the dictators — he’s following the same route, all over again.”

Read more: https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/05/30/long-islands-98-year-old-former-congressman-eats-dumplings-hates-trump-makes-tweets/