Source: US State of New York

arlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul was a guest on NY1’s “Inside City Hall” with Errol Louis. The Governor discussed Monday night’s tragic shooting in Midtown Manhattan, the need to implement stronger gun safety legislation nationwide, federal cuts to medicaid and provided a response to redistricting.

AUDIO: The Governor’s interview is available in audio form here.

A rush transcript of the Governor’s interview is available below:

Errol Louis, NY1: Governor Hochul is here. She joins us to talk more about that. Welcome back to the program — good to see you.

Governor Hochul: Good to see again as well, Errol.

Errol Louis, NY1: Governor, were State Police or investigators part of the response to the shooting?

Governor Hochul: We always offer our assistance. We call immediately and certainly NYPD had it under control. But we are there on the periphery.

Errol Louis, NY1: Your New York City office is really a short walk from 345 Park Ave. Does your building and the neighborhood as a whole feel safe?

Governor Hochul: Yes, but it’s very much on everyone’s minds since this horrific massacre of four innocent people in New York. Even I walked into my office the day after, and I look at the security guards and I think about what must be going through their minds right now to know that this happened so incredibly, brazenly beyond anything anyone could have ever imagined.

So, I feel safe where I am. I mean, this is an event the likes of which we’ve never seen here. The last mass shooting in New York City was 25 years ago, so I don’t want people to think this is a regular occurrence. I mean, no one would ever possibly think that, but it does shake that sense of security that everybody should have getting off the subway, walking into their office building, walking past the guards, and you should have the confidence to know you’re going to make it safely.

I think there’s a lot of people right now who are just feeling really anxious about it. I can feel the — not just the sadness throughout the city, but also the, “Am I going to be okay?”

I was speaking to one of the victim’s spouses and his advice to me was, “Go home and hug your husband because you don’t know how long you have each other,” and I think that’s a reminder as New Yorkers of never taking for granted the fact that we have people in our lives we cherish, and when they’re gone, there’s nothing more devastating.

Errol Louis, NY1: Absolutely. You are calling for reinstituting the assault weapons ban that America had for about a decade or so. You are also — I think I heard you talking about how New York laws, if applied nationally or in other states, would really cut down on a lot of these kinds of tragedies.

Governor Hochul: Absolutely. We have the toughest gun laws in the nation. I have added to them, especially after something we spoke about a number of times, which is the massacre of 10 individuals in my hometown of Buffalo. I went back and toughened our laws and raised the age for acquisition of guns and furthered the red flag laws, expanding them. We now have 4,300 guns that have been taken out of the hands of people who could have used them to harm themselves or others — that’s how you prevent these tragedies.

So other states could do this — we’ve banned assault weapons, there’s no high capacity magazines — but as long as other states do it and someone can cross our state lines by simply getting into a vehicle, we are not safe. And if every state on their own followed what we’re doing, they can also claim to be safe states.

We also have the lowest homicide rate using guns of anywhere in the nation of the large states — it’s extraordinary. The laws are working. The data proves there are more people walking our streets that are alive today because our gun laws have protected them.

Now, every state could manage the way we have, but also with respect to the assault weapons, there needs to be a national ban. It is within the realm of possibility. We had it for an entire decade, and Bill Clinton put it in motion in 1994 and George Bush let it lapse in 2004. And at that moment, we knew that we were more vulnerable to mass casualty events in our schools and at concerts, grocery stores or even in office buildings because of that action. Let’s restore it once again.

Errol Louis, NY1: Okay. There’s been a lot of political development since 2004 and there’s a large constituency out there, so we’ll see where that goes. Let me switch to a different topic.

The Republican-controlled Legislature in Texas is proposing a mid-decade redistricting. Normally you wait 10 years and then you do it after the census, but they’re proposing new lines — they were really released today — that would make five Democratic seats majority Republican. Basically, they’re trying to sort of really improve the politics and change, possibly, the control of the House or secure control of the House of Representatives. You’ve suggested that New York might do something similar.

Governor Hochul: What they’re doing is outlandish. They’re not playing by the rules, but a state like New York who has played by the rules should not be at disadvantage when another state and Donald Trump, at his direction, is basically disenfranchising communities of color represented by Democrats and putting them under Republican control, who, as we know, will never represent their interests. They won’t fight for health care, they won’t fight for nutrition programs, they won’t save them from the Big Ugly Bill which is hurting our country.

So New York, I’m looking at all of our options — we do have options. I’ve had many conversations at high levels and I’ll be announcing what our plans are going forward. But we’re not going to sit down and just take this, that’s not who we are. We have to fight back, we have to fight back hard, and, as I’ve said, all is fair in love and war. You want to play by new rules, then we’ll get new rules.

Errol Louis, NY1: Okay, fair enough. Speaking of new rules, there’s a question on the ballot this fall for New York City voters asking whether or not we should change our municipal elections to coincide with the presidential election. I was wondering if you have an opinion about that.

Governor Hochul: We did this at the state level because there’s not usually a lot of interest in the local election for supervisors and mayors and councilmembers — that’s the world I come out of. I was 14 years as a local official and they used to call it the “off-years,” and the “on-years” were presidential or when the governor runs, which always has a higher turnout.

It is so important to me that we get more people participating in this process, and I do believe that if all the elections were shifted to the presidential year, there would be a lot of interest. People can process multiple elections at the same time, they can think about who they want for their local officials as well as the President, and it gives an opportunity for a party like the Democrats to have one coherent, strong message to help carry our candidates from the bottom on to the top.

Errol Louis, NY1: Let me ask you about that, though. Let’s take you back to Kathy Hochul as Mayor of Hamburg, right? I mean if you are dealing with where to put the municipal waste water treatment center and there’s also conversations going on about war and peace and tariffs and everything else, isn’t there a concern — or a likelihood, frankly — that local issues will just get tossed?

Governor Hochul: No. One of the reasons I think that there’s not the voter participation that we should have in a country like the United States of America — it is a privilege to vote, people shed blood for this right, it was denied to people of color for so many decades — for a hundred years — and people won that right. I want more people to exercise it. And what happens is in a non-presidential election, non-governor’s election year, there’s not as much attention. New York is a little bit different, but there’s not as much attention on this and I do believe that more people will turn out and participate.

More people vote for president than any election out of this cycle. Why wouldn’t we want those people to also be able to select who their leaders are at the local level? We wish everybody would participate all four years but they don’t, so let’s acknowledge human nature.

And I also think there’s something that goes on — it’s election fatigue. People need a break, otherwise it’s nonstop campaigning all-year-round for four straight years. And I think when you sometimes have special elections, and vacancies, and the mayor — we have school board races at different times — it’s very confusing to people. So let’s just simplify it and have one big election.

Errol Louis, NY1: Okay. And you’re comfortable being part of that as Governor?

Governor Hochul: Absolutely.

Errol Louis, NY1: Okay, very interesting. We’ll see how that works out. While we’re talking about national issues, one result of the bill that President Trump just signed into law, the Essential Medicaid Plan that covers 1.6 million New Yorkers is being cut back. My understanding is that on January 1, an estimated 700,000 people are going to get kicked off that plan and they’ll have to go to the state-only Medicaid program, which will cost the State almost $3 billion. Is there a contingency in place for that, or is this going to be part of the next Budget?

Governor Hochul: No, well, we have the time because the number of people who will be affected will be actually more 2027. So it’ll be — in our ‘26 function when we do our ‘27 Budget, we’ll be able to address it then. But, look at what we’re being asked to do.

The Republicans can make all the cuts they want, save money for themselves and push it out onto the State — something that has always been a shared responsibility and expecting our residents to pay for something that they never had to before. So it’s hard to put this on the State. We receive about $93 billion in assistance from the federal government every year — we can’t make all that up. What we can do is be strategic about this.

We don’t want people to go hungry in our state — that’s not going to happen. We want people to have health care, it’s critically important, so we’re going to have to prioritize our spending, but we can do that. There’s no urgency right now. I’m not sure for sure that we won’t come back in a special session, but I want people to understand it would not make a difference because what we would do this fall can be done in January or during the Budget process, because these cuts are not going to take place until later

I want people to understand why there’s not the urgency to go have a special session today. for example.

Errol Louis, NY1: Let me switch topics. We’ve been reporting that the State Office of Cannabis Management has notified over 150 dispensaries — including 88 here in the city — that they’re out of compliance, that there are laws that require them to be at least 500 feet from schools, and churches and so forth.

The source of the problem seems to be that it was calculated wrong — the measurements were calculated wrong. What’s the fix that’s needed?

Governor Hochul: The Legislature, when they wrote the legislation, decided to have 500 feet away from the property line. Some campuses of schools are quite large, so it does push out the opportunity for these businesses quite a bit further out.

The State Liquor Authority, for example, has it be 500 feet from the front door, which is how it was applied by, interestingly, the previous individuals running Office of Cannabis Management who are no longer there. We went in and did an audit to see what was not working there and this was uncovered that they had applied the law incorrectly.

But I don’t think it should be born on the backs of these people — so many of them, their life savings, they’re going to these businesses. They’ve worked hard to go through the lengthy process to be licensed and then to have a location. So I have said we are going to stand up for them. These are entrepreneurs, they’re small business owners — many from communities of color — and this is their shot to have a chance to be successful. So, we’re not going to let anything happen to them. We’ll make them whole, and I have got to go back to the Legislature and get them persuaded to change the law to be consistent with what we do for liquor stores, for example.

Errol Louis, NY1: Got it. And would a solution also possibly include grandfathering in the ones that are already opening up.

Governor Hochul: I’d like to do that, yes. Yeah, no, absolutely. I don’t want them hurt. They’re part of our community already, they’re working hard, they waited a long time for this, and, basically, I don’t want them screwed.

Errol Louis, NY1: Okay. Look, we’ve got a lot more to think about as we get closer to the elections. Have you settled on a candidate? I think during the primary when I asked you about it, you said, “We’ll let New York City Democrats figure out who their nominee is and then we’ll figure it out.”

Governor Hochul: That’s right.

Errol Louis, NY1: So now that there is a nominee —

Governor Hochul: I’m having very interesting conversations right now. So, there’s no urgency. The election is in November; it is the last day of July, almost August. We’ll be deciding our path forward, but it’s important to me to have a working relationship, whomever the Mayor is.

I have said to individuals, “I can be your best friend or your worst enemy, you pick.” I can be a strong supporter — with Mayor Adams, I have been; $1 billion for City of Yes so we can build more housing. I’m paying overtime, the state is paying overtime so our subways are safer at night for the NYPD to be there.

So, I’ve always been a strong partner. I also represent the 8.3 million people who call New York home. I have an apartment here, I’m here all the time. I’m walking the streets. I have the same complaints — like, why isn’t the garbage picked up here?

Errol Louis, NY1: Sure.

Governor Hochul: Why is there a scaffold building, scaffolding everywhere — it’s maddening. So I understand, but relationships are important and I think it’s important for me to have those talks in advance, any decisions I make.

Errol Louis, NY1: Okay. Be sure to let us know when you have decided.

Governor Hochul: We will.

Errol Louis, NY1: Thanks so much for coming by. Great to see you.

Governor Hochul: Good to see you, Errol.

MIL OSI USA News –