{"id":4078,"date":"2025-10-15T22:02:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T22:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/4078\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T22:02:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T22:02:07","slug":"zohran-mamdani-now-changes-tune-on-gov-hochul-praising-her-on-affordability-after-saying-she-failed-new-yorkers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/4078\/","title":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani now changes tune on Gov. Hochul \u2014 praising her on affordability after saying she ‘failed’ New Yorkers"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALBANY \u2013 Mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani is now kissing Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s ring, claiming she\u2019s been \u201csuccessful\u201d\u00a0in addressing New York\u2019s affordability crisis \u2014 just two years after he ripped her for failing to drive down costs.<\/p>\n

The Democratic nominee flip-flopped in an apparent bid to play nice with the governor, who announced her controversial endorsement<\/a> of the socialist last month and embraced him at a news conference this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Governor Hochul has been successful in her pursuit of an affordability agenda,\u201d Mamdani said during an unrelated event Wednesday, naming \u201csteps that she has taken on childcare thus far,\u201d when pressed by The Post on which specific state policies he believed were working. <\/p>\n

But just two years ago, during negotiations over the state budget, the Queens state assemblyman ripped Hochul for not agreeing to raise taxes on millionaires.<\/p>\n

\"ZohranZohran Mamdani, the front-runner for mayor, says Gov. Kathy Hochul has been \u201csuccessful\u201d in pursuing affordability. Paul Martinka<\/p>\n

\u201cAt a time when the cost of living has increased and New Yorkers are being crushed, she has failed our constituents across the state,\u201d Mamdani said on the chamber floor during budget votes in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur governor said a key goal of her budget was to make New York more affordable. Yet she refused to do this even as the Assembly, the People\u2019s House, proposed raising taxes on New Yorkers who make more than $5 million a year and corporations with profits above that same amount,\u201d he said, before voting against that part of the state\u2019s spending plan.<\/p>\n

If elected mayor, the three-term assemblyman will need the cooperation of Hochul and the state Legislature to fund and approve much of his big policy promises, like free buses and universal childcare.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While he may find allies in Albany, Hochul has again vowed not to raise income taxes, putting a wrench in Mamdani\u2019s plan to pay for his handouts \u2014 proposals that come as the state is facing a $34 billion deficit over the next three years.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Mamdani also praised Hochul\u2019s early move to free up cash in the pandemic-era Emergency Rental Assistance Program<\/a> keeping some New Yorkers from being evicted after the rent moratorium ended.<\/p>\n

\"Zohran\u201cShe has failed our constituents across the State,\u201d Mamdani said about Hochul\u2019s affordability agenda in 2023. James Messerschmidt<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, the affordability agenda, the efficiency agenda, they\u2019re intertwined. It\u2019s one of the hallmarks of when she entered into office, and I\u2019m excited, frankly, to partner with her on these points that we put forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Hochul and Mamdani appeared at an event in his Astoria district Tuesday as she announced a grant for the Variety\u00a0Boys\u00a0&\u00a0Girls\u00a0Club of Queens\u00a0\u2014 the first time the two pols stood on stage in public together since her bombshell endorsement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to thank Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani for putting a special exclamation point on how hard it is for families struggling in this city and why affordability measures are so critically important,\u201d Hochul said during the presser.<\/p>\n

She later called him \u201ceminently reasonable\u201d<\/a> when it comes to finding funding avenues, other than raising taxes, to pay for his lofty campaign promises.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s campaign didn\u2019t respond to the unearthed 2023 speech. Hochul\u2019s office referred The Post to her previous comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALBANY \u2013 Mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani is now kissing Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s ring, claiming she\u2019s been \u201csuccessful\u201d\u00a0in addressing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4241,68,426,57,9,11,10,49,51,50,4281,58,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-4078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-albany","9":"tag-exclusive","10":"tag-kathy-hochul","11":"tag-metro","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-new-york-state","16":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","17":"tag-new-york-state-news","18":"tag-state-budget","19":"tag-us-news","20":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4078","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=4078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}