Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Delivers Remarks at Rehoboth Cathedral

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul delivered remarks at Rehoboth Cathedral.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the event is available here.

PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good morning, church. This is indeed the day the Lord has made, amen. Thank you, Rehoboth Cathedral for making me feel so welcome once again. Great to be back, I saw many of you on a Zoom visit we did in January, just so we could stay connected during these challenging times.

But to our Bishop Seabrooks, who took what had been a small Bible study group over 40 years ago and brought it to the powerhouse that it is today, I thank you for your service. I thank Bishop Jamison for also just realizing the power of the cloth to influence our communities. How important that is that government and the religious community work together to better the lives of all the people we serve.

I also want to thank our elders, and everyone, and Josiah, who did that beautiful welcome, Josiah you did amazing. I walked in the building, he ran to me, he says, you're Kathy Hochul. I said, yes, I know. The son of elder Keith, I want to thank him.

But this is a place that warms my heart because I've had my heart broken very recently and something - we all deal with pain in different ways, but scripture tells us that the Lord is near the broken hearted and saves the crushed of spirit, Psalm 34. We take comfort in those words because I have been broken hearted since a white supremacist with hate in his heart traveled three hours to my hometown of Buffalo two weeks ago to slaughter the lives of people who were targeted because of the color of their skin.

He was very clear, he said he wanted to go the zip code that had the most African-Americans, blacks, closest to his home, a small community in the southern part of our state. And he found Buffalo, New York, my hometown, literally 10 minutes from where I live.

But I also point out as I checked my MapQuest, where we sit today is three hours and 15 minutes from his house. So he did a big map of where he was going to go, so knowing that, I am also concerned about protecting all of our communities from such hatred and venom that spews out in evil ways. And I said at the time, as literally 24 hours after the massacre of the Buffalo 10 they call them, 10 good people doing nothing but grocery shopping.

I was in church, the church I go to often, True Bethel Baptist, and we prayed together and we talked about, yes, our thoughts and prayers are with them, but it doesn't feel like enough. You know, that's nice, but if we don't back it up with action and challenge people to change what's going on in this country, the madness of all those guns that are available, then we've not honored their lives the way we should have.

In their sacrifice there should be a movement that says no longer should we allow these military style assault weapons to be sold in our stores, no more, no more. You don't need to hunt a deer with one of those. I'm sorry, those are for fighting enemies on foreign battlefields. And yet they've been used to destroy the lives of not just American citizens, but fellow New Yorkers.

So, we were still literally yesterday burying the last individual who lost his life. He had actually -it was the 86-year-old mother of a true public servant, the Whitfield family, he had been our police chief in Buffalo, but he also worked for the state as the regional coordinator, the head of Homeland Security and he couldn't protect his mom from this.

That's what really hurt me so deeply yesterday when I went to the funeral in Buffalo. And I was there with an extraordinary leader, vice-president Kamala Harris, the first woman, the first woman of color, to ever ascend to that position. She came there, and if you don't know her well, the depth of her passion and caring for people was so evident.

She gave them comfort, she gave them a collective hug, a community that was so hurting. So I think about that, I think about our responsibility as leaders and what are we going to do about it now? I can't stop someone from being a hater, but if you're going to sit in your basement and hate, then okay, God will deal with you later.

God will judge you, what you feel. But when you act upon that, you go across the border to Pennsylvania and buy something you can add to a gun that you bought in New York at age 18. Who thinks an 18-year-old should be having guns? They can't have a beer, they can't have a drink, why should they be allowed to have guns?

And then they act on that once they've acquired this weapon, now we've got a problem we all have to deal with. So what are we doing about it? I immediately said, no more 18-year-olds, because just days later, before we buried the last of my neighbors, we saw another slaughter of children using the same weapon by another white, male, 18-year-old.

18-year-olds should not have access to them. They shouldn't be for sale in the first place, but 18-year-olds being able to get that on their birthday But also what we're learning now, in both cases, they were spewing their hate and becoming radicalized, especially the one from Buffalo about white supremacy, all on the internet.

Now the internet can be a force of good, we are able to share this message with many people remotely, that is a beautiful thing, but there are other people who do not use the power of the internet to do God's good, and to spread the word. They're being radicalized and hearing another word, another message, and it's being sent around the world and there's copycats and they follow each other.

So, I also said, not only am I going to stop people from being able to get these guns, and raise the age - I formed a Domestic Terrorism Center now, this is domestic terrorism, I called it out for what it was - we need to be watching what people are doing on the internet, because the companies have failed. The companies that allow this to go on, I believe should be held accountable, but there's federal laws that protect them, but we still have to do whatever we can to say that evidence is out there.

You connect the dots, they're telling everybody what they're going to do, and nobody stops them. That can no longer be the case. No longer. But I will also stand here as your Governor and tell you that every life matters. And it's not just those that are lost in a high profile, nationally talked about mass shooting, because we have shootings every single day in our state and in our city.

And each of those lives that we lose has value as well. So we will simultaneously be talking about how to get the guns off the streets so they don't get in the hands of a white supremacist, but I don't want them in this neighborhood when one gang member uses them against another, those lives matter too.

So I'm continuing my fight, calling for national laws to ban all these weapons and regulate them. You should not be able to have them, but until that time I've got my State Police out there watching the borders, see what's coming over before it gets to our streets.

We're stopping the bad guys at the border, saying, you go back home and sell your weapons of mass destruction back in Tennessee and Georgia, and even Pennsylvania. Don't come to New York because we're going to catch you. So, my message is, if there's loopholes like the one that allowed ghost guns - you ever hear ghost guns? They sound scary just by the name, ghost guns. I mean, you are able to order online how to make a kit, build your own gun and use it to kill somebody. We banned those.

Anytime I find a loophole, I'm going to close them. If the laws aren't strong enough, I'm going to make them tougher. And if the criminals try to get ahead of us, we're going to stop them. So I want you to know I'm going to protect the people of this state, I am hardwired to protect you, I'm a mother, and now I'm a grandmother. I have a one-month-old grandbaby.

So, this hits all of us personally as God's children. You strike down one of God's children you've hurt all of us as a community. And that is the depth that I feel. I have to be empowered and emboldened to go forth with the courage that I get from learning scripture.

I was raised in a very strong social justice Catholic environment. My parents taught us the beatitudes before we could almost speak. We are taught to take care of other people, those who have less, those who are homeless, those who are in prison. Those are God's people who need us the most. And that is why I'm going to continue fighting for them to make sure, first of all, that our babies growing up in this community have the finest education available to them because they deserve it.

And you have young men who are sitting here who just graduated from Old Westbury this weekend. I'm not going to call anybody out, I don't want to embarrass them, but we're very proud, very proud of our young people who know the value of education. And where did they get that? They got that from mom, dad, grandpa, grandma, the church, they've got all these influencers, but I want them to know we're breaking down the barriers because for too long, you couldn't get financial assistance in the State of New York, unless you went full time.

Well, if you're able to leave your life and go to school full-time, you probably don't need a lot of assistance because your parents gave you the money, right? So, in order to allow you to keep working and going to school, we're now providing tuition assistance for part-time students.

First time ever, it just makes sense. We're going to lift everybody up, just like education lifted my parents out of living in a trailer park. My dad worked at the steel plant, the child of very poor immigrants, lifted up because my dad while he worked by day could get a college degree. That changed my family's circumstances.

That's why I'm here where I am. And if that had not happened, I would not be here today. So I want that opportunity for everyone. And I'll lastly say, we spoke about this, I spoke with the bishops about this. What this pandemic did was open up some really ugly sores out there, we saw, and we couldn't deny the facts anymore that there are racial disparities in the healthcare outcomes.

We saw who got infected the most, we saw who ended up in the hospital the most, we saw who died the most, and it wasn't the white community. It was the black and brown communities because they were not getting what they deserve. They should have been front in line for the vaccines and the test kits.

And that is my commitment to you, I'm going to the places that need it the most, not the ones with the most political clout, the ones who need it the most. And that's how we're changing the power of state government and putting it to use for the people who count on us to not just be nice titles and off in Albany.

I'm showing up, I'm going to continue working. I'm working with your clergy, I'm working with all of you because we have no more time left to wait. Our people need us to be fighters for them, and I've been a fighter my entire life. I'm from Buffalo, New York, and all we do is know how to fight, you've got to be scrappy and strong.

So, I connect with my friends in Brooklyn because I understand the challenges. And I'm so proud to be your Governor. I'm so humbled that after the blessings I received when I visited here before, that God gave me the strength to conquer the adversity we got through, a little bit of a bumpy road still ahead.

That's all right because God is on that journey with me as well. And I thank you for your prayers. Thank you.