Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the presumptive Republican nominee for New York governor, blamed Gov. Hochul\u2019s policies for driving many New Yorkers out of the Empire State, saying she failed to resolve a mounting affordability and crime crisis. During a wide-ranging interview with\u00a0The Post\u2019s Rich Calder, Blakeman, 70, accused Hochul of \u201cembracing\u201d NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s socialist agenda and agreed with Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) that the 2026 gubernatorial election will be an \u201cexistential battle\u201d to save New York from socialism. As governor, Blakeman vowed to do whatever it takes to \u201cstop\u201d Mamdani if he feels the mayor\u2019s policies are destroying the economy or \u201cundermining\u201d law enforcement.<\/p>\n
Q: Following Gov. Hochul\u2019s State of the State address earlier this month, you said she\u2019s ignoring New York\u2019s affordability and crime crisis. What would you do to fix this and how?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0I would cut taxes. I would invest in economic development. I would cut silly regulations that keep businesses from coming to New York. I would do things necessary to promote business here in the state and create prosperity, so people have more money . . . higher wages and better benefits. That\u2019s the way to make it more affordable, so they can make choices about how they want to spend their money. And with respect to crime, I have a record of making investments in law enforcement, hiring police officers, corrections officers, and, basically, I would end the sanctuary state policy of Kathy Hochul, which makes us less safe, and it diverts billions and billions of dollars of middle-class taxpayer money to people who haven\u2019t earned it, who\u2019ve been here for 15 minutes. They\u2019re undocumented, and they are here illegally. \u2026 We should put New Yorkers first and try to make our residents happier. And I think we can do that by making it more affordable, safer, and having a governor who actually cares and does what he promises to do, unlike Kathy Hochul, who every year promises to do something, and does virtually nothing.<\/p>\n
Nassau County Executive and presumptive Republican gubernatorial nominee Bruce Blakeman said in a wide-ranging interview with The Post that he\u2019s the last line of defense to protect New Yorkers from NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s socialist agenda \u2013 while ripping Gov. Kathy Hochul for \u201cembracing\u201d it. Stephen Yang<\/p>\n
Q: What about repealing cashless bail and congestion pricing?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0One of the first things I\u2019ll do as governor is work with the [state] Legislature to repeal cashless bail. Cashless bail is a failure. You have people committing crime after crime after crime, and they [avoid jail] without consequences \u2026 [Also, the] Raise the Age [Law] has been a disaster. We need to . . . modify it. And when it comes to congestion pricing, I will end congestion pricing, which is no more than a tax on the middle class.<\/p>\n
Blakeman declined to say how much support he expects to get from President Donald Trump in his New York gubernatorial campaign but said he spoke to the commander-in-chief last week and Trump \u201cwished me good luck.\u201d Dennis A. Clark<\/p>\n
\u00a0Q: Do you feel Hochul was out of line claiming the Trump administration violated the law by sending troops into Venezuela to capture dictator\u00a0Nicol\u00e1s\u00a0Maduro?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0I believe anybody who tries to keep our kids from being poisoned by drugs is somebody [who] should be complimented rather than criticized. Kathy Hochul is pro-criminal. Everything she talks about \u2013 cashless bail, Raise the Age, sanctuary state \u2014 is pro-criminal. And for her to defend a drug lord-class dictator like Maduro is unconscionable, and it just shows how out of touch she is with reality.<\/p>\n
Q: \u00a0What do you think of the governor\u2019s support for legislation allowing New Yorkers to sue ICE officers if they feel their constitutional rights are violated following the shooting death of Renee Good in Minneapolis?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0The elected officials around the country, and particularly Kathy Hochul and [NYC Mayor] Zohran Mamdani, are undermining law enforcement efforts of our federal agents who are sworn to uphold the law. Rather than be spit at, and rather than be sued, and rather than have throw rocks at them, we should be embracing their mission.<\/p>\n
Blakeman accused Gov. Kathy Hochul of \u201cembracing\u201d NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s socialist agenda Andrew Schwartz \/ SplashNews.com<\/p>\n
Q: Were you surprised last month when Rep. Stefanik dropped out of the governor\u2019s race, and have you spoken to her since?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0Elise Stefanik said she wants to spend more time with her family, and that\u2019s completely understandable with a young son. I think we have to take her at her word that this was her paramount reason for taking a pause in her political career.<\/p>\n
Q: Do you expect her to support your campaign in any way?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0Elise Stefanik is a stalwart Republican, and I\u2019m sure she would rather see me as governor than Kathy Hochul.<\/p>\n
Q: Were you surprised President Trump has embraced the idea of working with Mayor Mamdani?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0I think President Trump has a record of communicating with everyone, whether it be the dictator in North Korea, whether it be other people he disagrees with around the world, and even here, domestically, and that is something he feels is important to keep lines of communication open, and I don\u2019t criticize him for that. I think that is his style, and so far, it\u2019s worked for well for him.<\/p>\n
Blakeman said, if elected, he\u2019ll repeal cashless bail and other soft-on-crime Democratic policies pushed on New York. Paul Martinka<\/p>\n
Q: When Mamdani won the mayor\u2019s race, Stefanik told me she felt the governor\u2019s race would be an existential battle to save New York\u2019s soul from socialism? Is that something you agree with?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0 I agree 100% with her evaluation. We have a mayor who talks about collectivism, which is a code word\u00a0for communism. He criticizes individualism, which basically means individual freedom, individual achievement, are things that he does not believe in. And Kathy Hochul has embraced Zohran Mamdani\u2019s agenda. She mentioned him glowingly three times at her State of the State speech and didn\u2019t talk about her record once because she\u2019s got a record of making people in New York miserable. . . . She\u2019s embraced somebody who has values that are un-American, and I think it\u2019s very telling that they are now political allies.<\/p>\n
Q: How would you deal with Mayor Mamdani if you become governor?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0I have said very clearly that if he tries to destroy the economy of New York City, I will stop him, and if he tries to undermine law enforcement in New York City, I will take measures to make sure that people are safe in New York City and secure.<\/p>\n
\u201cElise Stefanik is a stalwart Republican, and I\u2019m sure she would rather see me as governor than Kathy Hochul,\u201d said Blakeman. CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Q: What kind of support do you expect from President Trump and national Republicans in your race? Do you think they feel it\u2019s winnable and a good investment of their time?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0I am confident that I will get the support of moderate Democrats, independent men and women, and Republicans and conservatives because I have a common sense approach to government. I have a track record of making communities safer and more prosperous. And Kathy Hochul is the opposite. She has made us less safe and made New York less affordable with policies that are failures.<\/p>\n
Q: But do you expect help from the national Republicans and the president?<\/p>\n
A: I wouldn\u2019t limit it to that. I would limit it to Democrats who have openly said they will support my candidacy emotionally and financially. So moderate Democrats will be an important part of my campaign, as well as independent voters. And, of course, the foundation of my campaign will be with the Republicans and the conservatives who nominated me because they agree with the positions that I\u2019ve taken as county executive and know I will apply them to state government.<\/p>\n
Q: When was the last time you spoke with the president? And is there anything you could share about it?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0I don\u2019t share confidential discussions with the president, but I did speak with him last Monday, and he wished me good luck.<\/p>\n
Q: Do you think the National Guard should be deployed in New York City?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0I believe the NYPD is ably equipped to handle any law enforcement issue in New York City if the mayor doesn\u2019t interfere with their responsibilities. So I have a whole plan for what I would do incrementally, if, in fact, Mamdani was not enforcing the law or making it unsafe for police officers. I will not tolerate lawlessness, and I will not tolerate an unsafe environment for our law enforcement officers.<\/p>\n
Blakeman said he\u2019ll end \u201ccongestion pricing\u201d tolls to get into parts of Manhattan if elected New York governor. Helayne Seidman<\/p>\n
Q: Anything you could share on that plan?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0I want to do it incrementally, so let\u2019s just say that I am very well-versed in the powers that I could implement should Mamdani \u2026 make the city lawless, or if he was not protecting our police officers and other law enforcement officials.<\/p>\n
Q: Does New York City or other parts of the Empire State need more ICE raids, or should the agency cut back?<\/p>\n
A: I think ICE should be allowed to operate in any community where there are illegal migrants with criminal records preying on law-abiding citizens. So, I have no plans to curtail ICE\u2019s mission of removing dangerous criminals who are here illegally from our communities.<\/p>\n
Q: Where do you stand on the Long Island Railroad union contract negotiations, and are you worried about a strike?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0Well, right now there is a pause [until mid-May], so we\u2019ll see how negotiations go. My feeling with respect to collective bargaining is that it\u2019s exactly what it\u2019s supposed to be: negotiations and bargaining. And basically, I think we need to have workers who are competent, qualified, and happy in their employment. And the one thing about Kathy Hochul is, most [state] workers \u2026 are miserable under her leadership because she is not a good leader. She doesn\u2019t care about her employees, and it\u2019s demonstrated by the fact that she\u2019s had so much labor unrest.<\/p>\n
Q:\u00a0\u00a0Long Island didn\u2019t win one of the three downstate casino bids recently awarded. Did that bother you as Nassau County executive, and do you have any desire, if governor, to open more downstate \u2013 including in Nassau or Suffolk counties?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0I don\u2019t want to talk about that issue right now as there may be litigation.<\/p>\n
Q: What are your favorite sports teams?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0Well, obviously, I\u2019m from Nassau County, so I\u2019m an Islanders fan. I am a Knicks fan, although I will say that when the Nets were here in the ABA on Long Island, I was the Nets fan back then, but since they moved to New Jersey and now to Brooklyn, I\u2019ve been a Knicks fan for a long, long time. With respect to baseball, I\u2019m a Yankees fan. In football, I\u2019m more of a college football guy, but if I had a preference, it would probably be the Buffalo Bills, and the Giants and the Jets, secondary.<\/p>\n
Q: Are there any other major issues facing New Yorkers you plan to address if elected?<\/p>\n
A:\u00a0We are the most overtaxed state in the United States, and that\u2019s why businesses are leaving. That\u2019s why people are leaving. And that goes to the affordability issue. How can the governor say she wants to make this state more affordable when she wants to increase taxes, she instituted congestion pricing, and she has indicated that she would continue to raise taxes? . . . We are the most overregulated state in the United States. That hurts business development and job creation and prosperity. And we have high insurance prices, some of the highest in the United States. Our energy costs are some of the highest in the United States. She\u2019s been in charge for [more than] four years. What has she done about affordability? The answer is nothing.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the presumptive Republican nominee for New York governor, blamed Gov. Hochul\u2019s policies for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4190,1626,748,153,3365,424,426,57,9,24,55,54,56,13895,87,1211,2780,58,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-111576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-bail","9":"tag-bruce-blakeman","10":"tag-congestion-pricing","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-elise-stefanik","14":"tag-kathy-hochul","15":"tag-metro","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-city","18":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","19":"tag-new-york-city-news","20":"tag-ny","21":"tag-ny-governor-election-2026","22":"tag-politics","23":"tag-socialism","24":"tag-taxes","25":"tag-us-news","26":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}