Kathy Hochul on Mamdani, Trump and Where Democrats Went Wrong

On Tuesday night, we held a live taping at the Gramercy Theater in New York City.

It was a great night.

I sat down with New York Governor Kathy Hochl for a conversation on stage, and today we're sharing it with you.

You can watch the interview on Spotify.

Enjoy.

So, Governor Hochul, this is a live taping of the Journal Podcast.

Thank you so much for being here.

And because it is a live taping, I am now going to read through our classic journal-style podcast introduction.

So, Griffin, please hit me with that theme swell.

A divided Democratic Party, confrontations with President Trump, a federal crackdown on immigration, and now a government shutdown.

New York Governor Kathy Hochl is in the middle of it all.

Tonight, she's with me to talk about how she's facing those challenges and what's at stake for her party, her state, and her own political future.

Live from the Grammarcy Theater, welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Ryan Knutson.

Coming up on the show, a conversation with New York Governor Kathy Hochul.

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Governor Hoko, thank you so much for joining us tonight.

Thank you.

I wanted to start out by talking about the government shutdown, which as of this conversation has been underway for a full week.

Where is New York feeling it the most?

Well, we are feeling it in many ways.

First of all, we have unemployed Federal workers.

We have tens of thousands of Federal workers in our state, so that is a real immediate impact on it.

But also, the fight is about health care, and we are having to send out notices right now to 400,000 people that they will be losing the coverage that they have been counting on.

So that is really the essence of the fight.

But we're getting hit on so many fronts: the WIC programs, the SNAP programs.

People are really suffering in our state right now, and there's no sugarcoating it.

This is all bad.

Donald Trump and the Republicans in Washington have the power to just come to your senses, just give people the health care that they deserve in this country, get government back working in, and just do your jobs, for God's sakes.

Do your jobs.

Republicans say the same thing about the Democrats.

Well, last I checked, let me add this up, Republican President, Republican House, and Republican Senate.

So who are they blaming?

Filibuster.

They have the power right now to do as they did a few months ago and change the rules and have the majority they need.

They actually might be too chicken to do what they actually plan on unleashing on the American people because they're going back home to their districts and it's not been real pretty for them.

What can you do as governor about any of this?

Well, first of all, we have a bully pulpit.

You know, we stand up and scream about it.

I've called the president about restoring funds.

We actually, you know, I was proud of this because literally we are told that we were losing almost $200 million

of money for Homeland Security.

Now, this is New York City.

9-11 happened here, and they took money away from NYPD, the fire department, our emergency response systems.

And so so I literally called the president on this one, and I said,

let me get this right.

You're planning on defunding the police, right?

This is what this is.

You're defunding the police.

So that's not good for your politics.

Can we just get that going on again?

And they did restore it.

He did restore it a couple days later.

So what I have to do is pick my fights.

Actually, there's too many to choose from some days.

There's a lot of battles at the forefront here, whether it's the tariffs, whether it's the health care cuts, whether it's

cuts to research and therapies to help people save lives.

So we are really taking it on the chin, but I have to stand up and fight back.

And there are some cases, and I have said we can't possibly come up with enough money from our budget to backfill all the Federal programs, but we are going to have to take care of people who are really struggling, because this is New York.

We are not going to let anybody suffer.

Do you think Democrats in Congress made the right choice by not voting to keep the government open?

They are fighting for health care.

And this is a basic right that we have enjoyed now for many, many years as New Yorkers and as Americans.

Sometimes you just have to do what's right.

And standing up for people's health care right now is the issue that is defining our nation.

Who are you standing with?

The American people?

Or are you doing this so you can millionaires and billionaires across this country can get bigger tax cuts?

That's the choice that is before us.

At what point do you think Democrats should consider a compromise?

And what could they compromise on?

They can absolutely compromise.

And both Democratic leaders have said, you have our numbers, call us any anytime, time, we'll be there in a minute.

So, this is a fight that did not have to be.

They refused to look out for the people that we care so much about, our values, and we're not going to back down.

I want to talk about the Democratic Party big picture for a moment because, according to a Wall Street Journal poll from over the summer, 63 percent of voters have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party, and this is the worst rating that the Democrats have had since the Wall Street Journal started asking this question 35 years ago.

Only 33 percent hold a a favorable view.

Why has the party fallen so out of favor?

Listen, we've missed the opportunity to message what our true values are and our true beliefs are.

We've always been the party that fights for working families and people that just need to lift up sometimes and have an opportunity to get on the ladder to success.

We believe in education, we believe in science.

How radical is that these days?

We believe that people should have access to vaccinations so their children can stay alive.

We believe in some pretty basic things that are now under attack.

We have to make sure that people know who we are fighting for.

And I think there's been a real division in our party.

And I want to say this.

I believe we have capacity and the bandwidth to be able to welcome many voices in our party.

But I would define myself as more of a moderate Democrat with a very progressive heart.

I want to do what's right for people, but I also want to make sure that we have an environment in New York where we're pro-business.

I mean, I don't want to create all the jobs.

I want the businesses to to thrive and prosper.

So Democrats have to.

The party has to get back to talking to people without a 10-point, 15-point policy platform.

We talk down to people.

I'm from Buffalo.

I only know how to talk straight.

That's how I was raised.

I mean, that's what we do.

But I think the Democratic Party

decided they needed to be more intellectual about this and have all the answers and just sort of lost people the way they communicate.

But it's not hard to get back to.

So there's a debate taking place within the Democratic Party.

Should it moderate or should it become or lean more into its progressive roots?

And there's a bit of a microcosm of this debate playing out in New York City right now with Zoran Mamdani, who is the clear favorite to win the mayoralship.

He's clearly on the left flank of the party, calls himself a Democratic socialist.

What do you think is the best way forward for the Democrats?

There is a path forward.

There really is.

I view myself as moderate because

I want to support businesses,

even large businesses.

I want to keep them in our state.

I want to focus on my priorities, which is making sure that we're a hub for innovation and technology and artificial intelligence.

So I'm focused on those values, but I will work with the next mayor.

I do believe he'll be elected.

I will work with the next mayor to focus on what a mayor does.

A mayor is supposed to keep the streets safe and clean, pick up the garbage, kill the rats, get rid of some of of the scaffolding.

I hate the scaffolding everywhere.

Unless it's raining.

Just do it.

Unless it's raining and then it's not so bad.

Tough it up, you know, tough it.

I'd rather see the sky.

I'd rather see.

Anybody else want to see the sky?

So you endorsed Mamdani for the mayor, but in.

In your endorsement, you said at least three different ways that you don't agree with him on every issue.

What are some of the biggest issues that you disagree with him on?

Well,

I'm not looking to drive successful people out of our state.

And so I believe that he and I are aligned on the crisis of affordability, especially for young individuals.

Even the thought of homeownership is so far-fetched.

And I'm really saddened by this, that the price of everything is so out of reach for young people.

So we totally agree with that.

And the child care crisis today, it is real.

I lived it, and my own kids are living it.

So we can work together on those.

But how you pay for it?

We just have a disagreement on how you pay for it.

Right.

So he says that he wants to have an additional 2% tax on people that are making more than a million dollars.

You have emphatically said that you don't agree with that.

Why not?

Yeah, he has more recently said that he supports if there's other revenue sources, let's do it.

I can work with him on that.

Are you the only Democrat in the world who says they don't want to raise taxes on the rich?

Maybe.

But listen,

why?

I celebrate success.

Like I said, my parents' grandparents came here.

My grandfather was a migrant farm worker in South Dakota because nobody'd hire the Irish.

He thought he hit the promised land when he got a job making steel at the steel plant in Buffalo.

My dad worked at that steel plant.

My uncles worked there.

So when people work hard and are successful, or build a business, they have a great idea, some technology idea they came up with, and they're able to incubate it and take it to market and are successful.

I want them to know that New York is their home.

And so I have a different perspective of people who have become successful because I know they or their parents worked really hard to get there.

But so how do you pay for some of these things that the government needs without raising taxes?

Well, I'd also say this.

I'm finding efficiencies in government right now.

I'm looking at, again, are you doging the New York Times?

I'm not doging.

I was doging before they made it cool in Washington.

So that's not their idea.

No, it's about, I mean, I'm trying to find ways to streamline government.

Listen, I want to do things that very few Democrats have talked about.

I'm going nuclear, literally going nuclear.

I mean, nuclear power has to be one of the opportunities for us, not just wind and solar, which we're focused on, but I have an energy crisis right now, a huge energy crisis, a shortage of power.

And so I'm doing things that are a little more non-traditional for a Democrat, but that's the beauty of being a governor.

I'm not in Washington just flying the flag saying,

this is my team and I'm sticking with them.

I govern a state that is as diverse as San Francisco and Texas at the same time.

I'm from the Texas part, upstate.

I know upstate.

And I have to be pragmatic and solve problems and not

get caught up in all the BS of like labels.

Okay, you're this, therefore you must vote this way and this must be your position.

No, I'm going to do what's right and what's smart and what's the best thing for my state and for my families.

I want to ask you one more policy question on this topic.

One of the things that Mom Donnie says he wants to to do is make city buses free to ride.

The MTA is ultimately under the state's authority, which goes to you.

So is that something that you would be cool with?

Where are you getting the $700 million?

Everything can be.

From the taxes that he's going to raise on the wealthy people.

Okay, okay.

All right.

And then when high net worth people go to another state and I don't have their revenues, that's what worries me.

I mean, I really, we have to be smart about it.

I've said I'm not raising taxes on high net worth people right now because we cannot have them leave the State.

I don't want to deal with that.

But I also know that we have a lot of programs we want to fund.

We really want to fund child care.

There's nothing I'd like more than to have universal child care.

In fact, I proposed it last year.

But you can't do $7 billion for just New York City alone, which means $15 billion for the whole State, in one year.

I've already talked to a selling member Mondami about this.

We can find a path forward working together.

So, what people are going to see about me is I totally support these objectives, but I'm the one who has to balance the budget in New York, make sure we have money to fund our operations, provide services that we're required to.

So, my point is this.

There are a lot of good things we want to do.

I believe that

Zora Mondami has a lot of good ideas, but I also know that the nuts and bolts, the blocking and tackling of governing a city, is very different.

And that's going to be something that he will work on.

And I'm having conversations now about a very seasoned team to help manage a wildly complicated city.

And I know nobody likes to hear this either, but New York City is still a subdivision of the state.

So,

in other words, you're the boss.

You're the boss.

My goal is to make whomever the mayor is wildly successful, wildly successful, because our future hinges on the success of this region economically.

So, I don't want to have any policies or statements or directives that scare people out of our city.

I want them to stay.

I want them to prosper here.

And I want to build more damn housing because there's just not enough for people to have, not just to buy a home, but but be able to get out of living in an apartment with five other people you went to college with and now you're 40 years old.

It's time to move on, right?

After the break, Governor Hokul on her relationship with President Trump.

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I want to talk about one of those wealthy New Yorkers who has decamped for Florida, Donald Trump.

He has said this about you.

She treats me very much nicer to my face than she does to the public.

Is that true?

I don't see his face very often at all.

Listen, I am a very practical politician.

I know that my number one job is to help my state.

And I have had conversations on the phone, not face-to-face so much, but on the phone, where when we need something, I will call and I'll say we have a shared interest.

We're both New Yorkers.

He still really cares about New York.

And something like $18 billion

loss for building the Gateway Tunnel, which is not a luxury item.

That was all damaged by Superstorm Sandy.

And if we don't repair it, we could literally shut down the economy of the northeastern part of our country.

This is the funding that

Director Volmby in his first tweet out said, we're taking $18 billion for the $10.

Literally, while I was doing my presser in front of the Statue of Liberty, the day of the shutdown, I get a message handed my staff saying, oh, we just lost $18 billion

for the Second Avenue subway and the Gateway Tunnel, two deals that I negotiated hard to get on the books, 15,000 good-paying union jobs.

So I called up the President and said, you know, is this something we could look at?

Because

I think he thinks he might be punishing our leaders in Washington.

But I said, those are projects that I worked on.

I mean, those are hardworking people who probably voted for you, some of the union workers.

I mean, so I have these conversations.

I will say this.

Well, how did he respond?

He understands New York.

He understands New York.

But I also said, but if you come after New York,

our people, or our values,

We're going to have a fight.

And so I've had a lot of fights, especially on immigration.

Well, let's talk about immigration.

This is a big area we've had friction.

You've been very vocal about your opposition to the ICE raids that have been carried out by the Trump administration in the state of New York.

Is there anything you can do to stop it?

We don't have the ability to tell federal law enforcement officers not to do what they do.

But I wish I had the ability

to save these families.

And I was telling you some of the stories, Ryan, about

up in Sacketts Harbor.

Anyone know where Sacketts Harbor is?

There you go.

There you go.

One person has left the city.

That's great.

It's great.

Good for you.

Let's talk.

A little community, beautiful, historic, up on Lake Ontario, happens to be the hometown of Tom Homan.

Know that name?

Okay, check.

This is a trivia question.

You got to read the Wall Street Journal once in a while.

Trump's borders are.

Yeah, Tom Homan, yeah.

The borders are Tom Homan, who is the one who threatens everybody with ICE.

It was his hometown.

There was a raid by ICE at 6 a.m.

into a family's home.

A third grader, her mom and her two brothers, were taken away by ICE agents carrying guns, pointing guns at them when they had the masks on.

This was in an incredibly rural area, part of our state.

And it literally was called Old McDonald's Farm.

I didn't make that up.

Old McDonald's Farm.

And the owner was known as a big Republican in that area.

He wasn't getting help from any.

He wanted to have this family returned because he felt terrible.

He said, they're part of my family.

They're working here hard.

And I eventually was able to get them released, talked to Tom Homan about it.

So my job on immigration is to elevate these stories, create that sense of awareness, and hopefully the outrage.

So people realize where are the Republican voices standing up to this?

That area is represented by both those areas, represented by Republican members of Congress in the state of New York.

Where are they?

This is their moment to be part of

a national movement that rejects what is happening.

And I will help any ICE agent get rid of a criminal.

We said that.

Our policies say that.

But these are not the worst of the worst they're going after.

They're going after little kids and families.

But in many cases, I mean, this is what, I mean, people are, Donald Trump was very clear about this on the campaign trail that he was going to carry out these kind of deportations.

This is what people, and the Trump administration says this is what people voted for.

The worst worst of the worst was the exact quote.

The worst of the worst.

The bad people, the people, the murderers, the rapists, the terrorists, we heard all of that.

And that's, I will help in that category.

I will absolutely provide any assistance you need from the state to help in those categories.

But why are we taking third graders?

Why are we taking people working hard in a power bar factory?

that

are there supporting themselves and their families and the local economy?

Why?

How is that justified?

If you think that this is

creating so much outrage, why is Trump's poll numbers just steady as a rock, pretty much?

Well, it's only a few months into the term.

I don't think those are going to hold.

I don't think those are going to hold.

So Trump has deployed federal troops to Chicago because of what he calls rampant crime and unrest.

He tried sending troops to the city where I grew up in Portland, Oregon.

He sent the National Guard in D.C., in California.

Have you heard any suggestions that it could happen in New York?

And if so, how would you respond?

No, I talked to the President about this weeks ago when he was first mentioned in New York along with Chicago.

And I said,

first of all, I said, we have 32,000 members of the NYPD who put their lives on the line every single day.

And I think it would be personally insulting to them

for you to send in the National Guard because you're basically telling them you don't think they're doing their jobs when in fact violent crime shootings are down to levels we've not seen in 30 years.

As I mentioned, the subway crimes are incredibly much lower than they had been.

So I just wanted to frame this as

it's not as bad as you're perceiving.

And if you want to come to New York and walk the streets with me, you'll see this.

So I just had a rational conversation about, tell you what, if I get into trouble, I'll give you a call.

And he said, okay.

You've talked a lot about the conversations you've had with President Trump.

Do you have his cell phone number?

How do do you get in touch with him?

I do.

I'll get that from you backstage.

But

how does he respond to you generally?

I have enormous disagreements

with this presidency.

But at the heart of it, he is a New Yorker.

And that gives me an opportunity to remind him of our mutual interests in this city.

It does sound to me, based on what you're describing, that you are very much nicer to his face than you are in public.

All right, I think I've got time just for one more question, which is, you've said that you're running for re-election as governor in 2026.

What are you doing in 2028?

The year of the presidential election.

I will still love being the governor of the state of New York.

Do you think about running for president?

No?

No, no.

I do not.

But I'll tell you this.

I just left a meeting with Democratic governors.

We had one of our meetings in Boston, just got here a few hours ago.

We have an incredible bench of Democratic governors.

You couldn't go wrong with just about any of them because governors know how to govern.

I mean, we don't get caught up in all this drama.

We just like, no, I've got to run a state.

I've got to make the

buses run, the subways run.

I got to make sure I'm providing services.

The schools have to be open.

I have to take care of health care.

We just know how to get

stuff done.

We can bleep.

We get into trouble sometimes.

I just like.

Governor Hochul, thank you so much for your time.

We reached out to ICE for comment after the interview.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said ICE is targeting the worst of the worst, including gang members, murderers, and rapists, and that, quote, ICE is not targeting children.

The spokesperson also said the mother and her three children in Sacketts Harbor were taken into custody for their own safety as part of a separate investigation.

That's all for today.

Friday, October 10th.

The journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal.

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