Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Participates in a Times Union Fireside Chat

Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Participates in a Times Union Fireside Chat

Earlier today, Governor Hochul participated in a Times Union Fireside Chat.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page has photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Brendan Lyons, TU:  Yeah, so hang on. Let's just say that, a couple words that transparency and accessibility are really a hallmark of government service. And we appreciate you agreeing again to join us for this event. We did this last year at the Hearst Tower and it only took about what? Four dozen phone calls and texts, and your comms team has blocked me, so-

Governor Hochul: I told them to.

Brendan Lyons, TU: Yeah. So with the gubernatorial race and primary underway and what many of you saw as an unprecedented era in government unfolding and a huge shakeup in the Buffalo Bills organization-

Governor Hochul: And here we go.

Brendan Lyons, TU: Let's get this conversation underway.

Governor Hochul: The wounds are too deep, right?

Brendan Lyons, TU: Yes.

Governor Hochul: Now we're setting up in a bad mood.

Dan Clark, TU: This is the third time that I've sat down with a Governor for a face-to-face interview. This is the third time that her and I have unintentionally worn the same exact color.

Governor Hochul: Did you have more orange on last time or did you hav-

Dan Clark, TU: Last time we had like a rose purple maroon and then the first time we had like that, the color of the skirt. Actually the color of this-

Governor Hochul: It's karma.

Dan Clark, TU: Yeah, exactly. Great minds think alike. Thank you for coming over. We really appreciate it. I can tell that you are brimming with excitement to tell us who your pick for Lieutenant Governor is.

Governor Hochul: I'm announcing it right now. Just joking. That's what you get for benching the Buffalo Bills.

Dan Clark, TU: Have you made the pick?

Governor Hochul: We're down to the home stretch. Vetting takes a long time. I'll just say that. And there's a lot of people interested. And the vetting process, which is something that's pretty intense. And we'll know very soon.

Dan Clark, TU: Friday you're announcing it at the convention, right?

Governor Hochul: Thereabouts.

Dan Clark, TU: So, when you pick this new Lieutenant Governor running mate - I hate to start off with a very serious question, but do you think that your current LG should resign so you can just bring that person into your administration and have a real partner in government? Right now, you have somebody who is basically campaigning on the government's dime. Do you think that person should just come in, be part of your team?

Governor Hochul: I will leave that to the Times Union to observe and to state. That's an interesting observation. Correct.

Dan Clark, TU: Oh, yep. It's a factual observation I would say. I did ask him about that a couple of months ago, and he said his role now is to be the opposition leader against you. I would hope that your new Lieutenant Governor will not be that way. How do you look at picking somebody to make sure that they don't wind up on the wrong side? What is your, what's your litmus test, for this person?

Governor Hochul: I'm looking for someone who understands the levers of government and how, if anything happens to me, this is the role of a Lieutenant Governor, somebody besides me, that someone could step in and govern and not have to figure everything out from square one. So, loyalty is nice and important, but the preeminent test for me is: Is this someone who has the ability, the temperament, the knowledge, the experience to be able to step in and govern should that need arise. And so if they go in a different direction, I'll just say I know how to handle it.

Dan Clark, TU: The need arises a little bit too often in New York sometimes.

What election is this for you, number wise? Do you know? Do you keep that counted in your head?

Governor Hochul: 16.

Dan Clark, TU: It's your 16th election.

Governor Hochul: Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Clark, TU: Oh my gosh.

Governor Hochul: And this is the election - I've been in, to me this is my political Super Bowl and I get really up for it. And I'm better in game mode than not. I really, the off season is important - we govern and that's the most important role I have. But also, I'm not afraid of campaigns, especially when I know we've worked really hard to really lift up New York residents and families, and we have great, great policies I'm so darn proud of. And so a campaign allows you to go out and tell your story and explain it and say why I did this and who I'm fighting for. When they see that, they know that you're someone that can trust and someone that actually gives a damn about them.

And I've said this since my first race when I was a 35-year-old. I said, "I just want people to have their confidence in government restored again." And especially when I came in as Governor very unexpectedly, I did have the experience. I knew the state better than anybody and cherished the role. But I also said "I have to restore people's faith in government again." And I believe we've done that. We've come a long way in letting them know that this is not about egos, it's not about who's winning the war. It's not, zero sum game. If you're ahead that I'm down, I've gotta fight you. Whether its relationships with the Legislature, we have some Legislators, former Legislators here who understand what I'm talking about, whether it's relationships with our mayors, whether it's the Mayor of New York, even.

You know that it's historically for, not just the last few years, but decades there's always been this tension between usually two tight migos, people - who's the top dog here, and I never entertain that because that's not serving the people. So, I feel good about going out on the trail. I was just talking to my team. I was like, "I can't wait to go to every corner of the state as best we can." And I just, it's an exciting time for me. I really, actually, I really like to campaign.

Dan Clark, TU: I hate covering politics a lot of the time because it's so divisive, you know. That's something that we've really talked about over the past year, I think especially with the recent ICE killings and the killings in Minnesota, of the lawmakers, the state lawmakers. As you're approaching your second term, how do you try to push back on that energy, that partisanship, that extremism? Because at the federal level, it just seems to be getting more extreme. And at the state level, I don't think we have that problem as much, but national politics always seeps in. How do you convince voters that you are here for the government and you're not going to take something and make it into one versus the other?

Governor Hochul: I think because I'm known as a moderate, first of all, I don't. I don't want to be on either of the extremes, and I understand that people create energy and sometimes there's advocacy and sometimes you can raise money off of that and there's a lot of ways that it suits people's purpose to pick one side or the other and go to the extreme. And we have examples of that. That's not who I am. I've always governed from this middle place that says, "Hey, that's a good idea over here. This idea is good over here and I can pull it together." And that sets me apart, I think. And so I don't want to even campaign or govern in that dynamic.

When I was a young staffer, I was in my late twenties working as an attorney for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and it was such a privilege to work for a real statesmen. There was a time when the Republicans and Democrats, they would fight by day, but Tip O'Neill would go over and have dinner and watch a football game with Ronald Reagan and Moynihan would have drinks with Orrin Hatch and Bob Dole and Howard Baker. So, I saw as a staffer, statesmanship means that you stand strong behind your beliefs, but there's no reason why you can't treat each other civilly with respect and actually socialize and treat each other as human beings.

When I got to Congress in 2011, the Tea party had just emerged in previous months, with the 2010 election. I saw divisiveness that I hadn't recognized when I was a staffer, and it was deeply troubling to me. But then I thought, I was on Morning Joe, months ago, and I said, "You know what? I missed the Tea Party." Isn't that extreme? They were there fighting because they wanted lower taxes and less government intervention. But I don't remember it being so like, so personal and so destructive. And I thought they were as bad as it gets, and boy was I wrong. So, I just, I think it's destructive for our country and for people, again, trying to restore that confidence in government when all people see is you fighting, you should be fighting for them and not each other. And that's what we have to convey and I'll focus on that during my campaign and governing as well.

Dan Clark, TU: Do you think that, and I hate to make you look into your crystal ball, but do you think this is your final term in office?

Governor Hochul: No.

Dan Clark, TU: Why not?

Governor Hochul: I love what I do. This is the highest honor of my life and I think often about where I started from. I go back to the trailer park my mom and dad started in, and there's a diner there and I go in that diner and the people have had a rough, hard life and I could have ended up staying there if we didn't have circumstances and the ability to leave that. And I like to fight for people, and this is the best way I can possibly do it because this was something that was so beyond my expectations ever. And now to have this, I treat it as a gift. I cherish this. And be honest with that. I can't imagine doing anything else. I love this responsibility. And people often say to me, "How do you handle this stress? How do you handle the pressure? You look alright. You're not, you don't look tired." I'm energized by this and I know that someone has to be sitting here meeting all these intense challenges - government's shutting down offshore wind and shutting down my largest public sector project in American history is our gateway tunnel - just turn it off and then I've gotta deal with the ICE issue that I've gotta deal with a Budget and the city's challenges.

Dan Clark, TU: And you don't drink coffee.

Governor Hochul: And I don't drink coffee. My staff does not want to see me caffeinated, they think they couldn't handle that.

But all those challenges I find fascinating and all waiting for an answer or someone to just take a position and be strong about it. And I'm just adept at that. I've learned how to do that in a way that doesn't have a lot of drama, just get stuff done. So, the answer is no.

Dan Clark, TU: When you first became Governor. You had a package of things that you wanted to reform in government. One of them was, at the time you wanted to have term limits for statewide elected officials for two terms. So, what changed? Because this will be your second full term.

Governor Hochul: The Legislature didn't want to do it. No, I proposed it, thought it was a good idea and they didn't want to do it. And I said "I'll just do it for the Governor then." But that would put pressure on people saying the Legislature saying, "No, no, don't worry because it'd be more like in Washington, two terms for the President and the Senate and the House can go longer." "No, don't do it." So, it's, I just put that on the sideline, but it was something I thought was important, but-

Dan Clark, TU: Do you think that you still want that?

Governor Hochul: If the Legislature wants to support it, you know, I've, I don't care about that. I want to know that the years that I'm in, I'm working very hard because I so believe in lifting up New York and letting people know that I know that they're struggling with high car insurance rates and the utility bills and childcare cost and all the things and housing, my gosh, those are all the issues that I'm just sinking my teeth into and have been from the beginning. And I don't mind taking on a fight when people tell me, you're probably not going to win this. But somebody has to stand up and say, "Let's see how far we can get." Instead of saying, "I'm not going to take that on." And I have a lot of scars to show for the fights I've taken on, there's probably a lot more coming this year. But who else is going to stand up to entrenched interests that have been able to get away with what they want for so long because of people afraid to do that. I'm not afraid. I am fearless.

Dan Clark, TU: The number one thing that people told me to ask you about is utility bills. Energy is - energy at writ large is a big issue - with you proposing four new gigawatts. I'm not an energy person.

Governor Hochul: Five. I'm going five.

Dan Clark, TU: Five, four beyond the one that you've already ordered NYPA to do. Utility bills are so high. Is there anything that you can do to immediately lower them or stabilize them beyond what you have in your Budget and State of the State because that's more oversight measures? Is there anything that you can do to provide immediate relief?

Governor Hochul: You're right about my goal to have an all the above approach.

Dan Clark, TU: Yeah.

Governor Hochul: Lean hard into nuclear. We have mostly renewable clean energy in Upstate New York, because of hydroelectric power and up on Lake Ontario, we have four nuclear reactors that are actually, one of them is the oldest in the nation. Nuclear is working here and I want it to work even better, but that is a longer term process. I get that. Although I've talked to - this is, talk about common ground - I have had common ground with the President and his administration on this about asking why the regulations, why it does take 10 years to get approvals. We can shave off time there. But in the immediate short term we have - the Public Service Commission looks at these rate requests. We knock them down every time. That's one thing I can do is say, I know they can make a strong case for why they have to go up. Because yes, inflation has been hard, tariffs are hard, their costs for transmission - I hear all that. But I have to fight for the people who are paying that bill and not sure they're going to be able to and risk their power being turned off in the middle of winter.

So, we have set aside money and Empower+ New York to help people pay their bills. We put $83 million into our Budget to help people find ways to reduce their energy consumption at home. And they're very clever, a lot of it has to do with your cell phone being connected and you can make sure that your thermostats turn down very low when you're not there - all those things that are hard - some people are really tech geeks, they've already done this, but there's a lot of families who don't know how to do this. So, we found all kinds of examples of how the cost can go down.

So, keeping utility rates down with the companies, putting, helping lower income New Yorkers cover their bills, making sure they can keep the power on, and also trying to find ways to make it more energy efficient. And ultimately our all the above approach.

But it's been hard because we have very ambitious climate goals and Donald Trump has been standing in the way. If I'm counting on offshore wind and onshore wind and solar to meet the objectives that are put in place by the Legislature in 2019, and he shuts all those down, where am I going? Where am I going? I'm bringing down hydroelectric power. I launched that, in fact, my first few months as Governor in 2021 and we'll be powering a million homes. It's been such a fight to find the opportunities to meet the needs we have.

When Indian Point shut down, I know there's a lot of energy around that - that's no pun intended, but there's a lot of energy. It cut off 25 percent of power for New York City without a plan B.

Dan Clark, TU: And now it's mostly powered by oil and gas.

Governor Hochul: It's our gas, our emissions are so much higher Downstate than Upstate because of that decision. Now, it's fine. I have to deal with the fall out though, right? I have to deal with the fallout that I have to replace that power.

And when Donald Trump shut down Empire Wind, not once, but twice. So, this has been an epic battle to get that turned back on. Thousands of jobs, $5 billion investment, 10 year project, and it'll power half a million homes in Brooklyn by next year, if not earlier. Except, he shut it down in March for a few months. He shut it down this fall because he is -

I call him up. He's like- "Why are you doing this?" "Well you all treat me so bad." It's like okay - but these are-

Dan Clark, TU: Is that really what he says? Does he actually say, "Hey, stop talking bad about me on the tv and maybe I'll-"

Governor Hochul: Yeah, he said that on a radio show the other day. It's not me disclosing personal conversations. He said that and then repeated it to me.

I can't help that. Like I have to focus on the workers who are losing their jobs, right? Thousands of workers that we train. We spent money with offshore wind institutes, believing in this, committing the dollars, getting people trained, good paying jobs, a company from Europe investing billions of dollars and we're all ready to go. The lines are already ready to be activated. And I got to deal with - [he] wants to shut it down to teach us a lesson in New York.

So, we've got challenges, but we'll always find a path. We'll find the path forward. So, I do focus on energy bills a lot. I really do. And that's why the above approach is essential right now. It really is.

Dan Clark, TU: You had said, I think last year, November, December, that you wanted to engage with the Legislature on those climate mandates, the 2030, 2040, 2050 from the Climate Act. Have you talked to them about that? Is that something that's still on the table? Is that something that you want as part of the Budget this year?

Governor Hochul: What I want and what I have to deal with, those are two different things. I wanted to meet those goals. Okay. They're great. It's always fun to be nation leading, but two dynamics here: one is that the Legislature before my time, put in place a measurement standard that is only used by one other state.

And if we were not held to a stricter standard for engaging emissions, it's more than you need to know, but 20 years versus 100 years, we'd be one of the top in the nation for reducing greenhouse emissions. We'd be almost number one, but we're held to a very different standard. It's like, why is that? Because we're always going to look like we're coming up short despite our best efforts. So that's the dynamic over there.

In terms of hitting the goals, if we miss it by three years, yeah, the judge says, we're not in compliance. What would you like me to do about the fact that we had a pandemic that cut off supply chain networks that were supposed to be building more of our wind and offshore wind and onshore wind, as well as transmission lines. That all stopped during the pandemic.

You come out of the pandemic, you're now dealing with inflation. You come out of inflation. We're not quite out of it. Now you're dealing with Trump tariffs, which affect the cost of all the supplies. To build out the infrastructure, to deliver the energy that was hoped for back in 2019 when this was passed.

I just say to the Legislature and others, where am I going to go? I'm trying my best to meet these goals. They're great, fine, but change the calculation and we'll look a lot better. We met our goals a year early for community solar, but that's because Donald Trump didn't eliminate it. And he didn't take away the incentives. If you take away the financial incentives for wind and solar from the federal government, they're not going to build wind and solar.

Dan Clark, TU: And electric cars too.

Governor Hochul: That's right. All of our electrification efforts, they're great goals. I want to meet them desperately. We just have to look at what options are on the table. I have to deal in reality.

Dan Clark, TU: It's hard for families too because for example, I bought a home a couple of months ago. I would love to install a heat pump, but I can't afford a heat pump. It's $20,000, $40,000. It's tough. My mortgage is already high enough, you know.

So, on the climate goals, would you rather, I don't know, what's your dream scenario? Do you want to renegotiate the dates of them or would you rather renegotiate the formula for accounting or both?

Governor Hochul: For my all of the above approach?

Dan Clark, TU: Yeah, this is for your all of the above approach.

Governor Hochul: These are the conversations I want to have with the Legislature. I don't want to get ahead of it because this is something that you know, they're very proud of and I have to recognize that this is something that is hard for people to change when they really believe in something they did. I get that.

I'm just going to be having a conversation with them. Okay, let's look at the reality. What do you think we should be doing differently? How are we going to get power? How are we going to power this state and make sure, because I have to focus on affordability, I have to focus on resiliency. I cannot have this state go dark. I cannot, and I can tell you we were this close last summer when we had a long heat wave and we looked at our numbers in the grid and we literally came this close to having a blackout in New York.

And what we had to do to supplement the shortage of power we had to spend a lot more to get this power from other states. You would not believe the cost it was to bring in from Pennsylvania and other states, power that we didn't have. And so I can't run that risk either. So it's a huge driver of people's expenses, the affordability agenda, we have to create more supply, just like the housing, you build more houses, the cost of rents and mortgages are going to decrease. It's just basic 101 economics. The same thing with energy. If I can find more sources of energy, more reliable sources of energy, that's a, not long, long term, but a longer term way to reduce the cost of people's bills. So, I think about energy all the time, and that's why I'm so excited about our nuclear initiative.

We'll be building more nuclear in New York than the entire country has in 30 years. And this is not your grandma and grandpa's nuclear. This is safe. It is smaller, it's more contained. And when we started talking about this, I have eight communities that respond to RFPs who want this in their communities because they look at what we did up in Oswego, those are 600 good paying jobs and the unions are excited because this is union work to build the facilities and the transmission lines. So, I think this is where we're going and I'm looking at the White House, if they can figure out a way to scale down the review process and make them look at that as well. We can get there and then we can talk about all kinds of things we can't do right now.

But also, one big consumer of energy right now are the data centers. My longer term goal is to say, you want to come here, you're going to bring your own power because ultimately that'll be those small modular reactors once they become more commercialized, as they're doing in Ontario. I've had a lot of meetings with the Premier of Ontario. They're moving ahead on this. In Europe they're ahead as well. That's one way to say you're going to come here, you're going to figure out a way to create some, your own wind fields and solar fields and you have to generate your own power.

But in the meantime, we're going to charge you more because you're a huge draw on our energy grid and I can't afford to have people pay more because you want to consume some more and you're not creating that many jobs in the process. You get my attention when you're creating thousands and thousands of jobs when you're not, not the highest and best use of our energy.

Dan Clark, TU: Do you think that, I don't want to put them on the spot, but places like Micron are also going to draw a lot of energy. Do you think the same rule for them: pay more because you're a big absorber of energy? Or is that a situation where you have to balance economic development with energy needs?

Governor Hochul: That's a balancing act, but I first started conversations with Micron, I think my second week on the job in 2021.

In 2022, we announced the deal. We just had the groundbreaking a few days ago. This project is powered by hydroelectric power we have from Niagara Falls, as well as the nuclear that's up on Lake Ontario. So, they're actually uniquely positioned right there to be able to draw on our clean energy. We don't have a shortage Upstate. We don't have a shortage of power Upstate because of those two sources. So, we can do it there.

But also the return on investment, 50,000 good paying jobs plus $100 billion of investment on their end and investing $500 million in the city of Syracuse to help train young people and give them the opportunities for careers they otherwise have no access to.

And also, I said, we want you to focus on our priorities like childcare. They're literally building a childcare center on site because I asked them to. I told them to. So that's, I also think that when we have economic development dollars on the table, a huge amount of dollars on the table for this one. But we would've lost them to Texas. Texas thought the other states were vying for the, it was a very competitive situation. And when President Biden signed the Chips and Science Act, and the Legislature, within days I got them to sign the Green Chips and Science Act. I knew that I could be competitive with every other state in the nation. And we were, and we won.

And now to benefit that whole region Upstate New York with the supply chain is exciting. I've already been spending a lot of time on the phone recruiting businesses, showing them other sites, shovel ready sites. We invested a lot of money for shovel ready, so businesses are saying, "I want to be near Micron, and I'm a supplier to Micron and I can save money and transportation by being right here." This is going to make the Upstate economy explode. It really is. And so investing in them, but also allowing them to use the energy they need for those two renewable sources is a smart way to do it.

Dan Clark, TU: Speaking of the economy, we're in state budget season. The state, I think Blake is here, back there, the state I believe, is projected to generate, Blake, correct me if I'm wrong, telepathically $11.7 billion more revenue than you are expecting. Does that make the budgeting process easier because you have more money than you thought you would, or does it make it harder because now you have enough money to do more?

Governor Hochul: Did you subtract out the 11.4 percent cut from the federal government? About $10 billion, we lost, Blake? About $10 billion we lost from the federal government.

So we didn't get too far ahead. Yeah, even midyear, I had to go to our agencies and Blake drove this to find $750 million right after they passed the big ugly bill because the money was just sucked away from us and $3 billion shortfall for Medicaid. They put us in a real bind here.

So it's not as flush as we'd like it to be. But it also gives us [the ability] to do things like, what am I doing with that extra money? Investing $1.7 billion more than we anticipated into childcare. And that is a big win for families across New York. New York City has one formula, upstate has another, because New York City jumped in years earlier and they're further ahead. I want the rest of the state to catch up. I really believe in those investments.

But we're going to continue working on our out-year gaps as well. I have to make sure that we are financially sound, so the rating agencies will make sure that we have high ratings so we can borrow at lower costs. So that's important as well.

So, we'll deal with recurring expenses, we'll deal with setting aside money. I'm proud of the size of our reserves - they were dangerously low when I first became Governor. This comes from my doing fourteen municipal budgets when I was on the town council in Western New York. We always wanted about fifteen percent in reserves. We had about three billion dollars in reserves. Almost nothing, negligible. And I had to build that up because everybody kept talking about there's going to be a recession or something bad is going to happen. I said, "I cannot let anything bad happen and not have the reserves to help us get through those tough days." So, we're continuing to build reserves with that money.

As well as trying to offset the cuts to the hospitals that are struggling because of Donald Trump. We already know how that money's going to be spent. It's not just sitting there.

Dan Clark, TU: We don't have enough money for an inflation fund check again this year, unfortunately.

Governor Hochul: People are still happy they got the one last year. No, it was great. I saw a number of people, this one lady I saw at a senior center in Queens, she says, it's the first time I've ever had money in the bank. She got four hundred dollars. I've never been able to put money in the bank in my whole life.

Then another young man, I was - I walk all over the place - came up to me on the street and said, someone just stole my laptop and I didn't know what I was going to do because my job is on my laptop. He said, then I got my check from you and I was able to go out and buy a new one. You know, when everybody was criticizing me for that, saying, "Why are you doing that? It's a waste of money. Why are you doing that? It's not enough to make a difference." I'm so glad I did that and I had to overcome a lot of opposition. But things like that make you feel like the government is actually being responsive to people. People needed to have a little more money back in their pockets and we were able to deliver that. So we'll see.

Dan Clark, TU: Do you think in a year where you have a big surplus, do you think that's something that you would want to do again if you have the resources to do it?

Governor Hochul: The inflation rebate?

Dan Clark, TU: Yeah.

Governor Hochul: Yes, but again, when you lose ten billion dollars in federal money, you don't have what you thought you had. And now our investments in childcare and all the Medicaid loss - I would like to do it as often as I can, I'd have to just see how much we end up when we're all done with the Legislature.

See, because we work with them, we work with the Legislature. They have their priorities as well. But I thought it was - I was really proud we did that. Part of the reason we did is because we had an extra couple billion dollars. Blake, do we have extra three billion dollars? And we took two.

Dan Clark, TU: Yeah, you used two in the end.

Governor Hochul: And we did the other one for -

Blake Washington, Budget Director: DOCCS

Governor Hochul: Oh geez, don't get me on that. I knew I went somewhere I didn't want it to have to go. But yeah, we had to offset the loss of money and the expenses from the prison strike. That was just about a year ago, which is maddening to me. I'll talk about that another time. But we lost a lot of money. We're still spending way too much money for an unsanctioned, unauthorized illegal strike.

Dan Clark, TU: Right, you have to because the National Guard is still in the prisons.

Governor Hochul: Yeah, they are. If anybody wants a job as a corrections officer, see me after this. We are having so much trouble filling those jobs. We really are. And I reduced the age for it, not that someone would be in direct contact alone, but just get in and do the training, because local law enforcement hires people at 18. If I have to wait until they're 21 or older, they've already gone off to somewhere else or a sheriff's office and I want to get them all trained. I want to diversify the workforce. I want to bring in younger people. I want to bring people from all over. I want people from the cities and other places to just change the whole culture in the prisons.

It's really important to me, but it's hard to get people who want to go there. It's hard work and I have a lot of respect for the people who do that. It is unbelievably hard work and they feel very unappreciated. They should know that I do appreciate them. I didn't appreciate the strike, but I appreciate what they do every day.

So, I'm trying to build that workforce up. But until then, it's a major drain on us to be paying for all these National Guard members to do the job that I need people who work for me directly to do instead of the National Guard, and I want the National Guard freed up for other purposes as well. But again, this is another example of you don't expect these storms to come your way, but you have to find a path through and just manage it. So, money has to go toward that as well.

Dan Clark, TU: I want to end on ICE because you had that proposal come out on Friday to ban the 287(g) agreements. You've done a couple of ICE things in your budget too, in the State of the State. You said on Friday, you wanted to pass this 287(g) ban with the legislature as soon as possible. Do you see that happening before the Budget? Would you like them to move on it literally as soon as possible?

Governor Hochul: Yeah. I think there's a lot of interest in light of the incredible tensions that are just so traumatic for our country.

It is, at the larger level, it's just heartbreaking for me to see what this country has been reduced to. I find it unrecognizable. I mean, just watching the news this morning, I was going on Morning Joe, and I was watching a scene of a woman just driving her car and being surrounded by ICE agents and they jump out and they've got the masks on and she's literally in the car on her cell phone calling the police to rescue her because they look like they could be, like human traffickers or gang members or just, it looks - it's terrifying. And so now we have American citizens having to call police to protect them against federal law enforcement in America.

So, I'm going to continue doing what I can at the state level. We're saying you should not be able to go into sensitive locations, houses of worship, hospitals, daycare centers, schools. And now I had to put in homes. People said, isn't that redundant that you put in homes because of the Fourth Amendment? Did you know that they have a directive to say you can go into homes without a warrant? So, I put that in there, that you cannot go to those places without a judicial warrant.

And if they've trampled on your constitutional rights, we're going to give you a right of action, a private right of action that we have right now. If local or state law enforcement crossed the lines and violates your rights, why not federal as well? So I thought of that after I saw Renee Good get shot in the face and know that there's a little girl, a couple little kids in her family, three kids, who are going to be raised without a mom. Who's going to take care of them? That family should have a right to pursue justice in the courts for themselves.

And other businesses - I went to, I was in Cayuga County, I went up to a business that manufactures power bars, knock off power bars. They sell them in Costcos and Walmarts around the world. You never even know they're making these right here in our state. So that's where there was a major ICE raid. They went in, about 150 members of the workforce, and they separated them. And I - there's an editorial out there somewhere today that criticized me for saying that they separate people based on the color of their skin, except the individual who owns that company who told me he voted for Donald Trump and his wife who was crying because they took away half the workforce, told me that they went into the break room and said, the people with brown and black skin over here, and the whites over here. That is what is happening in America today.

So, what we did with the 287(g) says my police officers are busy enough. We're working hard. We're giving them technology. We're trying to help them reduce crime. We're giving them all the support they need to deal with emergencies and to deal with gang violence and getting guns off the streets and retail theft and everything else that's going on.

I don't need them to deputize a part of a massive military force, in my opinion, the way they're reacting, with - they now have a budget of 85 billion dollars. You don't need my local police. I want local cops, local crimes. That's what we're calling it. So, we're not also going to be using our jails for those.

Now let me be very clear, because others are going to conflate this. When it comes to pursuing individuals accused of a crime, we're all in. We've been doing this for years. State police, local - we will help any agent, any level of federal government, help remove people who are criminals and have committed serious crimes. But the act of crossing the border is a civil offense, and I don't want our police officers and our sheriff's officers being distracted with this, and guess what? Most of them don't want that either.

I encourage you to look at what District Attorney Fitzpatrick wrote in, I think it was Syracuse.com today. I don't want to promote another competitor, I hope I didn't just do that. But he wrote, he was interviewed because he came to my press conference Friday and the head of the New York State Sheriff's Association stood with me and the Commissioner of Police in New York City stood with me. The Commissioner from Albany came and stood with me. I had law enforcement surrounding me, reinforcing that this is about how we can protect our communities and keep them safe, and at a time when law enforcement is working so hard to restore trust in their neighborhoods and community policing, and get people to believe in them again, that they're there to protect them after everything that has happened over many years. Then you have ICE coming in and severing that trust. Law enforcement doesn't want this, except for a few people who think that this is a show of force and show of loyalty to the president and all these other reasons that have nothing to do with protecting the public.

And what broke my heart today, and I was in tears, just a few hours ago in my office, we invited a number of people to tell their stories about what it was, what was going on in their communities. One was an 11-year-old young boy, sixth grader, lives in Nassau County, said his mother had walked out on the family years and years ago and the dad was working so hard to raise him and his brother. They're walking down near Home Depot. The dad gets surrounded by - not ICE, local police who've been deputized under one of these agreements. So, this is Nassau County Police who took this father away from the child, leave him there. They think he's in a detention center in Michigan. Been gone since November. And the little boy just goes, "I miss him. He was everything to me. He would teach me how to play chess. He was my best friend. When my mom left he was there for us. He was working so hard. He encouraged me. He wanted me to go to college. I told him I want to be a lawyer someday." This little 11-year-old and he's sobbing as he's saying, I miss my dad. Another mother told a horrible story and a little teenage girl told her story, too.

So, you need to get out and feature these people. These are real life stories and listen to them and say, how is this happening in America today? And if there's anyone who does not condemn this and rise up and try to stop this, then I have to say, you have a very different vision of what America's supposed to be, because mine says we don't do that to people.

Dan Clark, TU: There's a lot of urgency to this. Do you think - would you support taking those proposals out of your Budget, putting it in with a 287(g), a little immigration omnibus bill and just passing it as soon as possible.

Governor Hochul: We could do that, we could do that. There's a lot of ideas that the legislature has. We have ideas. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I wish we could do more. And I just, I was looking at that little boy Ramon and I said, "I want to fly to Michigan and find his dad and bring him home." I don't know if I can do that, but these are the times that just call you to step up and act and show some humanity. And that's just one example of what's happening all over our State. In our State, not just Minneapolis. Okay? This is New York. We're better than that and I need to prove that we are and get people united, regardless of your party affiliation, show you have a heart, show you care about this country and how we'll be judged in the next 250 years.

We'll look back at this time in history, did you stand up? Did you condemn this? Did you rise up and say no more and show some humanity for people? Again, totally different than people that are committing crimes that have got to go. I'll say it over and over because people are going to say that's not true. It is true, but you can't look into that little boy's eyes, crying his eyes out, and I'm hugging him, and not have a heart.

Dan Clark, TU: Well, Governor Hochul, thank you so much for coming to the Hearst Media Center. We really appreciate it.

Governor Hochul: Thank you. Thank you.

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