Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul called for bipartisan action on President Biden’s supplemental funding request from Congress. This comes shortly after the Governor released a statement encouraging the supplemental funding to support national security interests and urgent domestic challenges related to border security and disaster relief.
VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
Before I start, I want to address what's happening in our Nation's Capital as we speak. President Biden is trying very hard to secure support for a supplemental funding initiative which will help New York dramatically. It'll bring more money to the border. It'll also have disaster relief, something we're well familiar with, as well as support for Israel and Ukraine in light of the conflicts in their regions.
Given that New York City and New York State is the epicenter of the migrant crisis, it's important for us to have this border security initiative. Also, we have had so many disasters, record rainfall and flooding, so the disaster relief is also important to us as well. And we have large Jewish and Ukrainian populations here who are being affected by what's happening to their family members at home.
Our Senator, Majority Leader Schumer and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries are fighting hard for this, but I'm calling on all the Members of the New York delegation to support President Biden and our leaders to ensure that this critical money flows to the nation, but also more particularly here in New York.
We have 11 Members of Congress, Republican Members of Congress, who I'm calling on to stand up, do the right thing, support this supplemental funding to help the constituents who sent you to office. Also, we're focusing on the government shutdown, which is going to have a dramatic ripple effect throughout the State of New York. It's something we're deeply concerned about, and again, we're calling on those extremists, especially the MAGA Republicans, who think nothing of shutting down our government. Not caring at all about the impact on businesses and small businesses and homeowners and veterans and people who are accustomed to getting the assistance from the federal government.
So, I'm calling on them to do the right thing. Don't bring our nation to the brink. Do your job that you were sent to Washington to do and make sure that we continue being able to function as a national government. So, that's my request as well.