Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul is a Guest on CNN to Discuss President Biden’s Visit to the Southern Border

Earlier today, Governor Hochul was a guest on CNN to discuss President Biden’s visit to the southern border.

AUDIO of the Governor's interview is available here.

A rush transcript is available below:

Kate Bolduan: Let's talk about this crisis at the border and how it has reached far beyond where they are going to be in Texas right now. Joining us right now is the Governor of New York, Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul. Thank you for coming in Governor.

Governor Hochul: Good morning, Kate, good to see you.

Kate Bolduan: So, they're — the President Biden, Donald Trump, they're going to be down at the border highlighting this issue today. The migrant crisis has made its way very clearly to New York. You have talked about this and been spoken very publicly about the need for resources and the need for help from the federal government.

The Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, he's trying to make moves on this right now saying that he wants to basically change the City's sanctuary city status in order to make it easier to deport migrants who were accused of serious crimes, though before that's even worked its way through courts. Do you agree with that move?

Governor Hochul: What I would say is the State of New York has a different sanctuary policy. We are allowed to work with federal immigration officials when a crime has been committed as we should be able to and what we want to have happen in the State of New York, if someone commits a crime like the horrific assault by migrants against police officers in Times Square — I immediately said, “I want them arrested, tried, and if convicted, I want them to spend time in New York jails before they are deported,” because if they're released, go back to their country, I don't know if they won't be back in the next few months.

So, I think we have more control, at least under New York State laws. Now, the City has a different view, and they can do — choose the path they want to. But also, it's a crisis that we need solved right now. We should not even be talking about crimes being committed by migrants in the streets of New York — and the vast majority of them are law abiding citizens. They truly are. They came here for a better life, and I don't want to highlight those who've committed crimes — they do exist. They exist in every society. But right now, the State of New York has the power to work with ICE when these situations occur.

Kate Bolduan: Because the difference is, is that Eric Adams seems to want them to be able to be deported before tried and convicted of a crime. You think that is a bad move.

Governor Hochul: Well, that is not consistent with our policy at the State level. We work with people. We want them to – I want people to have a punishment when they commit a crime against a New Yorker. I want to make sure that happens. That's very important to me.

Kate Bolduan: You've recently visited the border. When it comes to getting a real fix to the problem, Governor, obviously it's in the hands of Congress. Congress is stalled in getting their act together on any major bipartisan deal. You've been following those negotiations and how that has gone.

Well, House Republicans have definitely held up movement on what really was seen as a pretty – could have been a pretty big bipartisan deal. Democratic members from New York have also been against it. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had said of that Senate deal that she thinks it's contributing to worsen the border crisis and says that it was just giving Republicans everything that they want.

Governor Hochul: That is one voice that does not represent the majority of New Yorkers, the majority of Democrats or the majority of Americans. There was a solution presented on February 4th. I was in communication with the White House. They said we finally have a deal – conservative Republicans and Democrats have come together to fix this, and it's not the first time in history.

I was a young staffer working for Senator Moynihan when we had the Immigration Reform Act of 1986 — Tip O'Neill, Democrats, Republicans, Ronald Reagan signs it, and it calmed down for decades. That's all we're asking for – to have what the American people want us to do is get the job done.

Joe Biden has taken the lead. Republicans had in their hands the ability to get this done and prove that no, Washington is not as dysfunctional as it seems. We actually can solve this. And when Donald Trump went on Truth Social, 24 hours later, it all collapsed because even Republicans from the State of New York, which are under a lot of stress right now.

We're under a lot of stress and a lot of money is being spent to house people to make sure they're not in the streets and try to get them jobs. It's taken its toll on our State. We're at capacity. We have big hearts, but we're at capacity. I have 10 Republican Members of Congress. If they banded together and walked into Speaker Johnson's office, he would have to listen to them.

We even have a Member of Congress up on the Northern Border, who's perhaps auditioning for Vice President. But the truth is the deal that President Biden wanted, and that Chuck Schumer negotiated with Republicans had money for the northern border. I need that border money. I need it on the southern border and the plan to stop all this chaos is in the grasp of the Republican House and they need to step up and do what they're sent there to do and help govern this country.

Kate Bolduan: You mentioned Trump. New York has also become the center of the universe so far – so far for Trump's legal troubles. I mean, I can list out from civil defamation to his first criminal trial that's about to happen and he just lost that massive civil fraud case here. The AG Letitia James led that charge on the civil fraud case. She has faced some criticism for basically, bad form that she openly campaigned on a promise to take on Donald Trump specifically. And if you look at her Twitter feed, it seems that she's kind of rubbing – I guess you could describe it as kind of rubbing it in his face, kind of posting on Twitter how the interest is accumulating for that civil judgment. Are you okay with that?

Governor Hocul: I have long known, as has everyone in the State of New York, anyone following the news that Donald Trump had unethical business practices. You go to any businessperson who ever worked with him over the last 40 years, and they all have stories about how they were defrauded, and banks that were defrauded based on false information. So, for someone to talk about that in the context of what she did, that's not unknown now – that's commonly known. It was commonly known, so, if she wanted to say that this is something she would pursue as the Attorney General, I think we would expect that. Is she supposed to run and say, “Well, I know it's out there and there's a lot of smoke there we shouldn't investigate this because it might,” I don't think we would expect that. We want people to do their jobs. She was elected. She did her job and there are consequences. Presidents of the United States and former Presidents are not above the law, and she demonstrated that.

Kate Bolduan: Governor Kathy Hochul, thanks for coming in.

Governor Hochul: Alright, thank you.