Monday’s debate between the Republican candidates for governor featured plenty of inter-party strife, but no pair of gubernatorial hopefuls sniped at each other more than Rep. Lee Zeldin and businessman Harry Wilson. 

“In January of this year, he asked me to be on his ticket. Now why is he honestly attacking me now? Because his campaign is disintegrating,” Wilson claimed, days after he formally sued Zeldin (R-Long Island) alleging campaign finance violations.

Zeldin denied that he had any interest in associating politically with Wilson, at the debate, which also included former Westchester Executive Rob Astorino and ex-Trump White House Aide Andrew Giuliani.

“I never asked and I wouldn’t ask ‘Never Trump’ Harry Wilson,” Zeldin said as Wilson tried to talk over him.

The Wilson campaign clarified after the debate that the millionaire businessman, who is self-funding his campaign, was referring to a Jan. 12 phone call when Zeldin supposedly tried to convince him to run for state comptroller.

A Zeldin spokesperson did not immediately respond for comment on the purported push to get Wilson to run for comptroller.

The clash was one of many between the two candidates – who have millions more to spend in the homestretch of the campaign compared to Astorino and Giuliani.

Zeldin has the official backing of the state party in the primary and has led most polling in a race that still appears up in the air with early voting slated to begin June 18. The primary date is June 28.

The winner of the GOP primary will face the Democratic nominee, expected to be Gov. Kathy Hochul, in the November election.

“Notice that ‘Never Trumper’ Harry Wilson didn’t deny the fact that he refused to vote for Donald Trump over Joe Biden,” Zeldin said at one point before bashing Wilson for his past campaign donation to Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

“You went to Harvard? Yes. But don’t think you’re smarter than the Republican voters across the state of New York who can figure you out, Never Trumper! They figured you out that you worked twice for Obama. They figured out that you fired your unvaccinated employees,” Zeldin said at another point in the debate. 

Wilson defended his business record on vaccines by saying it was a cost of doing business given federal rules.

“Mr. Zeldin has never had private sector jobs. He does not understand how businesses work. I ran a nursing home business. President Biden was introducing a vaccine mandate for all nursing home employees. And we had to deal with that,” Wilson said. 

Wilson for his party, hardly shied away from labeling Zeldin as a career politician who went with the political winds during his time in state and federal government.

“I won more votes and got closest to winning statewide than any Republican in the last 20 years running the most fiscally conservative platform in the last in my lifetime,” Wilson said of his losing 2010 campaign for state comptroller against Democrat Tom DiNapoli.

“That is not what Mr. Zeldin is trying to do. Why is he doing this because he will do anything and say anything to distract from his terrible record as a quote Cuomo clone, which defines his time at Albany,” Wilson said.