{"id":234404,"date":"2026-05-17T08:05:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T08:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/234404\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T08:05:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T08:05:23","slug":"bruce-blakeman-rips-into-kathy-hochul-over-lirr-strike-says-gov-failed-to-do-her-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/234404\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Blakeman rips into Kathy Hochul over LIRR strike, says gov ‘failed to do her job’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Long Island Rail Road strike sparked a firestorm of finger-pointing\u00a0in the hours after thousands of workers walked off the job<\/a>\u00a0in a\u00a0midnight\u00a0strike,\u00a0mangling commutes for countless Long Islanders.<\/p>\n

Gov. Kathy Hochul found herself under withering criticism when she tried to pin the transit meltdown on the Trump administration within an hour of the strike.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe disruption that Long Islanders face starting tonight is the direct result of reckless actions by the Trump Administration to cut mediation short and push these negotiations toward a strike,\u201d Hochul said in a sentiment mirrored similar ones by MTA boss Janno Lieber \u2014 who claimed the LIRR workers\u2019 unions never had any intention of averting a strike.<\/p>\n

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman slammed Gov. Kathy Hochul as \u201cthe worst governor in America\u201d for failing to stop the Long Island Rail Road strike. Robert Miller for NY Post<\/p>\n

LIRR workers rally together outside Penn Station as they continue their strike, completely shutting down all rail services.\u00a0 Matthew McDermott for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cFor weeks, the MTA has attempted to negotiate in good faith and put multiple fair offers on the table that included meaningful wage increases, but you cannot make a deal if one side refuses to engage in good faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump fired back on Truth Social, saying the \u201cDumacrat\u201d had no one to blame but herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe knows, full well, that I have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT \u2013 never even heard about it until this morning. She just blurted out, \u2018it\u2019s President Trump\u2019s fault.\u2019 No, Kathy, it\u2019s your fault, and now looking over the facts, you should not have allowed this to happen. If you can\u2019t solve it, let me know, and I\u2019ll show you how to properly get things done,\u201d\u00a0Trump fumed.<\/a><\/p>\n

Nassau County Executive and GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman slammed Hochul\u2019s attempt at shifting the state issue onto the federal government as \u201cso disingenuous it is laughable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHundreds of thousands of Long Islanders woke up to chaos because Kathy Hochul failed to do her job,\u201d Blakeman said Saturday in a blistering statement. Matthew McDermott for NY Post<\/p>\n

Earlier Saturday, the Republican issued a blistering<\/a> statement that labled Hochul as the \u201cworst governor in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHundreds of thousands of Long Islanders woke up to chaos because Kathy Hochul failed to do her job,\u201d said\u00a0Blakeman.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the latest coverage on the LIRR strike which has stranded 300K daily commuters <\/p>\n

\u201cThis strike didn\u2019t come out of nowhere \u2014 Hochul knew this deadline was coming and still allowed commuters, small businesses, nurses, teachers, and tourists to become collateral damage. Hochul can\u2019t pass a budget on time, can\u2019t keep the trains running, and cares more about bailing out Zohran Mamdani than the commuters stranded on platforms,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

Hochul\u2019s team told The Post that Blakeman\u2019s is just cozying up to the president.<\/p>\n

More than 3,500 LIRR workers across five unions are on strike after a drawn-out battle with the MTA over pay raises failed to come to an agreement. Christopher Sadowski for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Governor Hochul is focused on affordability, protecting commuters, and getting trains running again, \u2018100% MAGA\u2019 Blakeman is doing what he always does: rooting for dysfunction and higher costs so he can score political points with Donald Trump,\u201d Hochul Campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika told The Post.<\/p>\n

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More than 3,500 LIRR workers across five unions, including engineers, signalmen and trainmen, walked off the job at 12:01 a.m. Saturday after a heated, drawn-out\u00a0battle with the MTA over pay raises<\/a>\u00a0failed to come to an agreement.<\/p>\n

Blakeman slammed Hochul as \u201cthe worst governor in America\u201d over the LIRR strike deal failure. Stephen Yang for NY Post<\/p>\n

The work stoppage\u00a0was expected to strand nearly 300,000 commuters, with limited shuttle buses available for essential workers and those who can\u2019t telecommute on weekdays. MTA chief Janno Lieber and Goc. Kathy Hochul told other riders to simply work from home.<\/p>\n

Dozens of teamsters were rallying outside Penn Station Saturday morning as part of the picket line, as frustrated commuters raced to their destinations.<\/p>\n

Striking locomotive engineer Karl Bischoff\u00a0said\u00a0the intention is not to burden<\/a> the commuters, but to force the MTA to \u201cnegotiate fairly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the commuters out there, this is not a fight against them. Commuters are our families, our friends, our neighbors.\u00a0We apologize but unfortunately, this is what it has to come to because the MTA does not want to bargain in good faith,\u201d Bischoff, 53, who has worked with the LIRR for 29 years, said.<\/p>\n

One of the last trains to leave Penn Station before the LIRR strike in New York City, which began at midnight on May 16, 2026. Christopher Sadowski for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do we have to back down? Three years without a contract, three years without a raise, okay?\u00a0 Did the people on the MTA Board get a raise? I don\u2019t know.\u00a0Why won\u2019t you ask them that? I don\u2019t make $420,000 [like] Janno Lieber, okay?\u201d<\/p>\n

The strike will also cause major headaches for Long Islanders looking forward to attending the Mets vs. Yankees Subway Series games this weekend.<\/p>\n

The Mets will provide additional Citi Field Direct Shuttle service from Roosevelt Field and Walt Whitman Shops, as well as new shuttle routes from the Manhasset LIRR Station serving the Port Washington Line area. The team is also dispatching shuttles from the Bronx, Staten Island and even New Jersey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Long Island Rail Road strike sparked a firestorm of finger-pointing\u00a0in the hours after thousands of workers walked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1626,426,1606,85688,57,141,9,11,10,58],"class_list":["post-234404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-bruce-blakeman","tag-kathy-hochul","tag-lirr","tag-lirr-strike","tag-metro","tag-mta","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234404","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=234404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}