Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman slammed Gov. Kathy Hochul Tuesday as she distanced herself from the new pied-a-terre tax \u2014 while claiming she\u2019s not the state Democratic Party\u2019s real leader.<\/p>\n
Blakeman tore into his Democratic rival as he visited with local businesses in Flushing, Queens one day after a judge paused the tax on luxury second homes that was pushed by Mamdani but signed into law by Hochul.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s doing everything that Zohran Mamdani wants her to do, \u2018cause he\u2019s running the party now,\u201d Blakeman told The Post.<\/p>\n
Blakeman ripped into the governor in an exclusive comment to The Post while campaigning in Flushing, Queens on Tuesday, saying that the mayor was \u201crunning the party.\u201d Robert Miller for NY Post<\/p>\n
Blakeman, who serves as Nassau County executive, called the rollout of the levy \u2013 which applies to non-primary residences worth more than $5 million and condos worth more than $1 million \u2013 \u201chorrible.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to encourage people to invest in second homes in New York State \u2014 what are you, crazy?\u201d Blakeman said, pledging to change the policy if he\u2019s elected.<\/p>\n
Blakeman\u2019s comments came just a day after the controversial tax was halted by a Staten Island judge, who issued a temporary restraining order on the levy until the end of the month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was also a day after the governor expressed her frustration with the rollout of the tax \u2013 and attempted to distance herself from the ruling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Nassau County Exec. called the rollout of the levy \u2013 which applies to non-primary residences worth more than $5 million and condos worth more than $1 million \u2013 \u201chorrible.\u201d Michael Nagle for NY Post<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not responsible for the rollout,\u201d Hochul said to reporters during an unrelated event in The Bronx yesterday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is something that we talked to the city about in advance,\u201d the governor said. \u201cIt\u2019s up to their city tax department.<\/p>\n
But Blakeman said that this was just a \u201ctypical Kathy Hochul\u201d case of blaming everyone else for her own mistakes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Blakeman\u2019s comments came just a day after the controversial tax was halted by a Staten Island judge, who issued a temporary restraining order on the levy until the end of the month. Michael Nagle for NY Post<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s typical Kathy Hochul to blame everybody else for her failures,\u201d Blakeman said. \u201cThis is the most overtaxed state.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Besides the pledge to change the pied-a-terre duty, Blakeman also told reporters that he was looking to defy New York State\u2019s recent Sanctuary State law that requires local governments to cancel partnerships with immigration officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nassau has an active agreement to cooperate with ICE and the Republican has sought to challenge the state\u2019s recent package of sanctuary laws.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m talking to the lawyers,\u201d Blakeman said, before adding that he\u2019d follow the law if upheld legally, \u201ceven if I don\u2019t agree with the law.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI swore to uphold the law, and I would always obey the law, but I\u2019m not sure that it\u2019s legal, what Kathy Hochul did,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman slammed Gov. Kathy Hochul Tuesday as she distanced herself from the new pied-a-terre…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1626,3677,426,57,9,11,10,49,51,50,79763,58,82],"class_list":["post-319042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-bruce-blakeman","tag-governors","tag-kathy-hochul","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-pied-a-terre","tag-us-news","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319042","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=319042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}