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connecticut

Tara Rosenblum

Lee Danuff

hochulonadamswithquestion

Your arrival here to Syracuse comes on the heels of two pretty significant political headlines, so I want to dive right in and start with your pick for a running mate. Tell us why you feel that Adrian Adams is the right choice for this moment for New York, and you know, I heard you talking earlier. You have so much in common, so I'm curious, what do you feel that she brings to the ticket that you don't already have? She has such an in-depth knowledge of New York City. It is extraordinary. Being the speaker of the city council means you have to pull together 51 people with very diverse opinions from every corner of the city. And you work on challenges like building more housing and child care and social services and and making sure that emergency services are provided for so she understands all the levers of government but particularly one for the biggest city in our state, the most complicated, so I can rely on her and I feel like I know the city very well, but there's always a deeper level that I believe she brings having lived in Queens, been raised there, and knows the boroughs so well, so that is a real value add to me.

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hochulonmamdaniquestionmp4

Mayor Mamdani, you endorsed him back when he was candidate Mom Dani last year, and now this day he returned the favor. So besides the obvious on the drive up here, I was reading that Sienna poll that found he's the most popular elected official now in New York State. So besides the obvious, what do you hope to gain from that alliance? No, I think it just shows that we're willing to work together, roll up our sleeves, and that's, that's what New Yorkers want. I think that era of, you know, the mayor and the governor fighting just because we've got these tighten. Epic sized egos and we get to who's the top dog, who gets to be first with the press release, who, who did this with the pandemic or who did this on the. I are so over that and when you get an individual like myself who made it my mission to work with whomever the voters want, I worked with Bill de Blasio for a few months. I worked with Eric Adams. I look forward to continue to work with Zora Mandami and, and coming through with a, a major accomplishment for New Yorkers because we announced together that we are committed to universal child care and there's. Plan for the city and plan for upstate because they're in different places right now, but it is exciting so I think people are feeling energized that they have leaders who are, are realizing putting our own egos aside and fighting for them and that's what Adrian Adams brings to this as well. I mean this is not about egos. This is about people that are just so committed to public service as I am and that's the kind of partner I was looking for. So I'm excited about these endorsements. Uh, it's a big deal and I think, you know, we're doing very well today with all that support, but I still run like an underdog. I, I fight hard in my elections. I take them very seriously, and I'm so excited about once we get to the convention of going to every corner of the state and just saying, hey, you saw me for 8 years as lieutenant governor, many years as governor, and I'm back again to tell you what we're doing for you and your families.

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hochulontaxesquestion

So a lot of those issues on affordability, you and Mayor Mamdani are in lockstep on with the budget gap a little bit of a different story, right? He is warning that the state is facing a multi-billion dollar fiscal crisis that can only be solved in two ways either the state delivering more aid or new taxes. You have said that's a nonstarter. Has that changed or is there any? Scenario out there any at all where you can envision a scenario raising taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, it's not going to be necessary because I don't believe in raising taxes for the sake of raising taxes. We have been working closely with the administration again, it's a new administration. They're still getting under the hood to find out, you know, what expenses have to be paid this year versus next year. They're trying to figure out. Do they have all the the most accurate calculation of revenues? We found out at the state level because Wall Street had done so well. Stock market bonuses that are taxed by the state came in, we had $17 billion more than we anticipate. The city is going to benefit similar, not $17 billion but they're going to get sort of a windfall from that. So take that. Calculate that other areas we can take off some of the burden that's on them now from the state so we're we're in really positive conversations about how to get them through this, uh, for this year and next and get them on stronger footing going forward and it's not just New York City. I was in Buffalo this morning, you know, the mayor is asking for help there until they can just get stabilized a little bit more. Or Yonkers and Syracuse are asking for help as well. So, so we're just trying to, you know, do what we can do. But the first start is, is like let's, let's do a forensic of what's going on now. We're not just taking state tax for dollars and throwing them at problems. We're gonna be helpful in ways that'll put you on a long term, long term path toward, uh, independence.

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hochulonblakemanicequestion

And one of the fights on speaking of which I, I know that you're taking on now is ICE, and you know we're seeing these massive protests from our city streets in New York out to the Grammy stage. You yourself have called for Secretary Nome to step down or to be terminated. That hasn't happened, but of course since you made that call. We've seen now the addition they're calling for body cameras for the agents. Hundreds of them just announced leaving Minnesota. Does that go far enough for you? And I guess just overall, do you feel that the federal government is acting in good faith when it comes to immigration enforcement? No, not at all. That's the whole point here. This is a brazen abuse of power. We all listened to Donald Trump when he said he was going to close the borders. That's fine. I don't believe in open borders. I want a common sense immigration policy. I don't support open borders, but he was gonna go after the ones who are here, the baddest of the bad, the ones that were the drug traffickers, the murderers, the rapists, the the horrible people. I'm gonna, the ones they let out of jails to come here. He had this. You know, way of persuading a lot of people that that was exactly what he's gonna do, except he didn't. He, his team came up with 3000 people a day quotas. So now to hit the quotas that they now are trying to please the president with, they're going after ordinary residents of our communities. So we're running a pizza pizza shop shop in Long Island for 20 years, um, some in Syracuse where we are right now, a couple of people worked at SUNY Upstate, just took them. People that are making, you know, just making a better life for their families, so I support going after the criminals. Whatever I'm gonna do, I'm gonna make sure that we don't tie the hands of law enforcement to help our local law enforcement to help get rid of the bad people who are committing serious crimes, but I don't think local law enforcement should be turned into ICE agents when they're trying to build trust in communities. Trust in communities is the most important. Important part of policing is they wanna keep focusing on dealing with emergencies and accidents and snow storms and and if there is a robbery or or car theft that's what our local police should focus on not becoming deputized as ICE agents as the Republican Party wants to do and as Bruce Blakeman is doing on Long Island, literally dragging a high school student out of school who's an honor student. To throw him in a detention center, that's what the police officers are doing in that county. That has to stop.

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hochuloncrimewithquestion

Let's look ahead then to the general election battle. We know that the spotlight here will soon shift to the Republicans who are holding their nominating conference out on Long Island. Not surprising given Bruce Blakeman likely at the top of their ticket. He is painting himself as a law and order alternative to your leadership. So why are you The right choice for not only voters down in the city but in the suburbs Long Island, Westchester, and here upstate we're meeting in Syracuse who remain concerned. I know the crime stats are getting so much better recently, but people remain concerned about public safety and also many people in the suburbs about the direction of politics down in New York City. The crime statistics are hitting record lows whether it's the subways, whether it's where I was in Buffalo or in Albany and Syracuse and Westchester talking about our investments. It doesn't the crime statistics are not getting better just because we wanted them to. They're getting better because they do have a law and order governor now who believes that we need to do everything. We can to keep our community safe and that means giving the resources $3 billion and it'd be interesting to hear the Republicans try to explain how they support a president who literally defunded us who took away almost $200 million just a short time ago from NYPD and. Fire departments for money to protect us against terrorists. They took that away. I had to call the president and say, Mr. President, if you take this, you're defunding police. Is that what you want out there? So I think it's almost interesting now that it has shifted that the Democrats are the ones who are getting the results, making the investments. I was out on Long Island talking to police departments about the money we gave for license plate readers and. For new computers in their cars and drone technology, which is doing incredible work to help solve crimes and prevent crimes. So, so I'm, I come out of a family of prosecutors and law enforcement, so you can't question my credentials in changing state laws when we needed to changing the discovery laws. I've taken on some hard fights. These have been some of the toughest fights, uh, of my budget process over the last few years fighting changing the. Bail laws to make them more reasonable, giving judges more discretion. So I'd like to see them try and, you know, that's kind of a rerun of an old movie and people aren't going to buy it this year. And one of the fights on speaking of which I, I know that you're taking on now is, um, ICE and, uh, you know, we're seeing these massive protests from our city streets in New York out to the Grammy stage. You yourself have called for, um, Secretary. To step down or to be terminated, that hasn't happened. But of course since you made that call, um, we've seen now the addition, they're calling for body cameras for the agents. Hundreds of them just announced leaving Minnesota. Does that go far enough for you? And I guess just overall, do you feel that the federal government is acting in good faith when it comes to immigration enforcement? No, not at all. That's the whole point here. This is a brazen abuse of power. We all listened to Donald Trump when he said he was going to close the borders. That's fine. I don't believe in open borders. I want a common sense immigration policy. I don't support open borders, but he was going to go after the ones who were here, the baddest of the bad, the ones that were the drug traffickers, the murderers, the rapists, the horrible people, the ones they let out of jails to come here. He had this. You know, way of persuading a lot of people that that was exactly what he's going to do, except he didn't. He, his team came up with 3000 people a day quotas. So now to hit the quotas that they now are trying to please the president with, they're going after ordinary residents of our communities. So we're running a pizza pizza shop in Long Island for 20 years. Um, some in Syracuse where we are right now, a couple of people worked at SUNY Upstate, just took them. People that are making a better life for their families. So I support going after the criminals. Whatever I'm going to do, I'm going to make sure that we don't tie the hands of law enforcement to help our local law enforcement to help get rid of the bad people who are committing serious crimes. But I don't think local law enforcement should be turned into ICE agents when they're trying to build trust in communities. Trust in communities is the most important part of policing as they want to keep focusing on dealing with emergencies and accidents and snow storms and if there is a robbery or car theft, that's what our local police should focus on, not becoming deputized as ICE agents as the Republican Party wants to do and as Bruce Blakeman is doing on Long Island, literally dragging a high school student out of school who's an honor student. To throw him in a detention center, that's what the police officers are doing in that county. That has to stop.

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In her first sit-down since naming a running mate, Gov. Kathy Hochul discusses her lieutenant governor pick, party unity, ICE,  her relationship with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, congestion pricing affordable housing, homelessness and fight for the House, among other things. 



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