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28pandp2_2026-02-08-12-20-39

Welcome back to this special edition of Power in Politics. I'm Tara Rosenblum. Now the official standard bearer for the New York Democrats. We continue now our extended one on one conversation with Governor Hochel as she looks ahead to her policy priorities and a high stakes election year. 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 shop in Long Island for. 20 years I support going after the criminals. What 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 part of policing as 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. And this is one of the biggest talking points in our battleground House races. There's a lot of folks who believe the path to power will once again wind its way through New York. You have an increasing national voice now, so tell us, what role do you anticipate New York is playing in the overall national strategy for the Democrats and which GOP-held districts are you personally targeting as you think the biggest pickup opportunities? Well, it's an exciting. Time for Democrats in New York to reverse the trend where we have all powers of government being controlled by Republicans. I think even there are Republicans in the state of New York who said this is not what we thought we were getting. We did not sign up for this. Just bring it back to a normal place. We're not having a federal government that it's at war with its citizens and its residents and literally killing people in the streets of a place like Minneapolis. That is, that has shocked the conscience of everybody regardless of your political party. So there is going to be a reverberation against that, and that's gonna be felt at the next polls, but in terms of my role for the national, my job for New York State but also the country is to work hard to elect enough Democrats to put Hakeem Jeffries in the Speaker's chair and have him have the gavel this time next year, one year from now we can change the course of history. We can't take back the White House for a couple of years. Hopefully we can take the Senate, but if I focus on picking up seats as I did in 2024, I worked hard. We had, we had seven battleground seats in New York that could tip the difference, tipped it either way, and I won 5 out of 7 by helping our local members of Congress, raising money through the state party. I wanna keep the seats we won. Make sure we don't lose any of the pickups, but also, you know, Mike Lawler's district. I think even Elise Stefanik, even Elise Stefanik's district, I know we're here today to talk about 2026, but I, I want to read you a list of Democrats whose names are out there as possible 2028 contenders. Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, Pete Buttigieg, Gretchen. Whitmore, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, your fellow New Yorker, Andy Beshear, JB Pritzker, you know, all of these folks in a way most of us don't. So if it were up to you, who is best prepared to lead the Democratic ticket? I will say this, uh, they are all my friends. I'm like, it's like being a parent to pick your favorite child. I'm not gonna go there, but especially the Democratic governors who I know better and. I just had more interaction with them and I know what it takes to be a governor, especially in a purplish state like New York. We're not a true blue state anymore. We're definitely purplish. Being an executive is a harder job in my opinion, having been in the congress myself, it's. It requires you every day to have a lot of incoming and a lot of competing interests that you have to make tough decisions, so I put my faith, uh, and I love if it's a, if it's a congressperson from New York, I'm gonna be very excited about that as well because I love candidates from New York, but also. The Democratic governors, what a deep bench we have. Homelessness is rising dramatically across New York. In fact, I was just looking at the data we're seeing some of the highest numbers we've seen in decades in Long Island, um, out on the island and certainly intense scrutiny following the deaths that we just saw in New York City following the cold snap and the blizzard, so. Um, from where you're sitting, what's working, what's not, how do we stop people from dying outside in the cold? I'm very concerned about people who are still outdoors. New York City has the code blue. People can be forcibly put indoors to save their lives. I support that because every life matters and not everybody's able to make a decision about their own well-being. I passed a tough law last year. That says that there can be involuntary, uh, confinement to get people treatment because leaving someone on the street is not compassion, but the, the core of the problem is the failure of this state to have the ambition to build enough housing for decades and now we're starting to feel the effect. If we had enough supply, we could have more affordable homes at that end of the spectrum, and that's what I've been laser focused on for 4 straight years and heading to this next term. I'm not taking my foot off the gas despite opposition in places like Long Island and others that are, you know, people live there and they're closing the doors to others. We have to find a path forward where we can open up people's hearts and their communities to more people, and they should realize how enriched their communities are.

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28pandp3_2026-02-08-12-20-59

Back, I'm Tara Rosenblum, and before we leave Syracuse, we have one final question for Governor Hochel all about congestion pricing. And last question for you, congestion pricing. We just did a big special report on congestion pricing hitting its one year mark, and I know you've touted it as a success safer streets, less congestion, uh, cleaner air, increased revenue stream, but there's a whole lot of drivers, as you know, in the suburbs in Out of, New Jersey who feel punished by the congestion pricing tax. What is your message to them and, and is this a done deal? Is this staying in place? You know, it's gonna stay in place because we've already made long term commitments for critical infrastructure and products to make sure that the investments that were not made for decades in an aging system that is the lifeline of our region, whether it's Metro North, Long Island Railroad, or the subway system itself, I have to have the resources to do that. So this is money that we've already committed to making sure that they're more handicap accessible and then we have barriers on the platforms to protect people from being pushed on the subway tracks. Cameras on every train, lights everywhere. I want LED lighting. I want to make the experience better and, and safer for people, so I need the revenues. But the data that shows trips coming in from New Jersey, which you mentioned, people are saving, you know, dramatic amount of time on their commutes, and I'm hearing more from them saying I gripe about the cost, but I am home a half hour faster than I was before, or I can leave a half hour later in the morning, and that is time back in people's lives and the fact that New Jersey. 80% of the people work in the central business district now already come in on public transportation because we have those pipelines. I'm redoing the whole Port Authority bus terminal to make that experience better for people coming in on buses. So I'm trying to look at it holistically, how we can get people from the Hudson Valley in on the east side of the river, uh, in easier than they than they have right now for their commutes. I focus, I, I love trying to solve problems, and this is one that I'm gonna continue focusing on for the next few years as well. I appreciate the. Opportunity to get to know them better and have them see me out in the communities and I know that I'm just going to keep fighting for them because that's all I know how to do. Thank you, Governor. So now as the Democrats look ahead to November, all the attention shifts back home to Long Island, where the Republicans are holding their state convention with Bruce Blakeman at the center of the fight. News 12, we'll be there bringing you all the action from the convention floor. For now, I'm Tara Rosenblum in Syracuse. Thank you for joining us for this special edition of Power in Politics.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/10227753-2826-45a8-82ab-3c45cfbf8eb4/10227753-2826-45a8-82ab-3c45cfbf8eb4.transcribe

Gov. Kathy Hochul spoke with News 12's Tara Rosenblum about the issues affecting the lives of millions of New Yorkers. 

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