Video, B-Roll, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Visits the Chautauqua Institution and Delivers Remarks

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul visited the Chautauqua Institution and delivered remarks.

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

B-ROLL 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:

Thank you, Michael, for your leadership under extraordinarily trying circumstances. I also want to acknowledge the presence of our County Executive. County Executive Wendel and I worked very closely together during the pandemic. It's been a foxhole for two solid years and I want to thank him and the sheriff of this county for their immediate response as well.

I'm joined by the Superintendent of the New York State Police, Kevin Bruen, who I've asked to join me to give a quick update, as well. And Candy Maxwell, the Board Chair. I just took a few minutes to meet some of the individuals who would not have called themselves heroes, but I sure did. The individuals who are part of the stage crew, those who witnessed the horror, that some of you may have been in the audience to see just a few hours ago.

And they sprung, they saved a man's life. I could still see the trauma and pain in their faces that they're trying to figure out how something like this could happen in this place known for its healing, its tranquility, its harmony. But I will tell you the team that was on the ground here and the EMTs, the firefighters, and those who showed up and literally kept a man alive as they were transporting him, did an extraordinary job, but they're also human beings. I could see a lot of adrenaline, a lot of fear and the images keep going over and over in their head. So just keep all of them in your thoughts and prayers. If you see them as you're strolling through, just give them a hug. They need our love as well. I was very proud to meet them.

You know, for over 150 years, Chautauqua Institution has really stood as a crown jewel in our state. I'm well familiar with it. It's founded on the principles of education and freedom of expression and inclusion, all values that we are proud of here in New York. And this is a place where people believe in the vigorous exploration of ideals and philosophies and study religion and politics. And indeed, it was in 2017 when I stood at this very place as Lieutenant Governor celebrating the 100th anniversary of women securing the right to vote. I think the crowd was a little bit smaller. I was Lieutenant Governor back then, but I talked about how I had come here countless times as a child. I was telling Michael, my family grew up blue collar up in Buffalo. My dad worked at the steel plant and we didn't have a lot of money. In fact, we really couldn't afford to go through the admission gate. They used to pile us in the station wagon after church on Sundays and bring us here just to breathe that rarefied air, that someday they'd be able to afford to bring their children here and to experience the wonder of Chautauqua and they did. And my husband, Bill, and I raised our children up the road. We brought our children here.

So, this is not a short term experience to me at all. This is home. This is home to me. I know all of you who are here either as long term residents. Occasional visitors. People are here to enjoy the next upcoming week of programming. I know why you're here. You're in search. You're in search of something that is so unique to this place, that this is the place that someone decided to act on a threat to an individual who simply spoke truth and wrote. And so that is why we talk about a place that doesn't just value, dialogue and freedom of speech, freedom of thought, this place exists because of those values and I was here to tell you it will exist for the next 150 years, founded on those values as well, because nothing would change what we have here.

And I do believe that that is why the attacker chose, after many, many years threat over Salman Rushdie's life for having the courage - and I find it fascinating that we're entering the week of courage as your topic - that this person who stood for a symbol to all of us of courage, great courage, that his attacker found him in this place. A place of openness, a place where thoughts are shared regularly. So that's why he came here. Attempted to do something, he failed. He failed. As we learn of the continued recovery of this individual, who's been subjected to so much over his life, but I will tell you right now, as your Governor, New York State will always stand up to protect freedom of expression, freedom of speech and we condemn the cowardly attack on Salman Rushdie. We condemn any individual or any group that dare violate the sanctity of a place like Chautauqua or to an attempt at assassination on a world leader. That cannot happen in New York. We're standing up and we will stand. We will stand with courage.

I want to thank those, as I mentioned at the outset, those who stood with courage to save a life. I want to thank our State Police. I had a chance to meet the trooper who was the first one to take him into custody, an individual who's been on the force all of eight years. I shook his hand and I held it for a while and looked in his eyes and said, thank you for what you did. I'm sure the training didn't prepare you quite for this incident, but you were there. You didn't just respond as a professional, you responded as a human being who did everything in your power to save a life. So let that be part of your story. Let that be part of your story and go forth with courage.

And I want everyone to know that as the investigation unfolds, and there's much being found, you'll know the story. And those who are motivated to violence because of calls from foreign leaders, even domestic leaders, calls for violence cannot be tolerated. So, we're going to continue. And I want it out there that a man with a knife cannot silence a man with a pen.

We will ensure the safety of all New Yorkers, will never allow anyone to harm the ideals at this institution. And I'm also going to talk about some other threats that we're facing, because this is not the first time in the last three months that the spotlight of the world has been focused on Western New York.

May 14th, three months ago, the racist attack by a white supremacist on neighbors in Buffalo, New York. The grocery store is literally ten minutes from where my husband and I live. I know this community well. And they were targeted by an individual who is so radicalized on social media - and I'm going to guess that is where the attacker on Rushdie was radicalized and learned how to ferment the evil in their head - on social media. All of this is out there. That person was radicalized in our own state, traveled three hours and why'd he go to Buffalo, New York? Because he searched and found that that was the largest Black population and the closest drive to him. That was three hours. He could have gone to Brooklyn, three hours and 15 minutes. He was in search of doing the most amount of harm he possibly could.

So, in the immediate aftermath of that, we went back to Albany and I said, we're going to do something about this. Not only ban AR-15s from teenagers, being able to buy them as was the case, that is now the law of the land. You have to have a background check. You have to be over 21, that changed. But also I said, we have to form a specialized unit in our State Police to focus on domestic terrorism. We now have that stood up. We're focusing on it. And we also are focusing on social media platforms. I have called on our Attorney General, Tish James, a strong woman. You do not want to mess with Tish James. And she is out there working with her team to find ways that we can monitor, so we can see what's happening before it happens, because I don't want to be in the business in New York State of solving crimes. I want to be in the business of preventing crimes. And when the message is laid out there and they're spelling out and no one connects the dots sounds a lot like 9/11, doesn't it? They never connected the dots.

Well, now those dots are coming together. We're monitoring, we're watching. We are vigilant. We have an entire team of individuals hired to watch for this information being out there. And the radicalization that's happening to individuals as well as improving our Red Flag laws.

What is a Red Flag? It says when there's individuals out there, whether they're in a school, a workplace, in the community, and they give signs that they're going to do harm to themselves or others, we have a responsibility and a right to find out whether they have access to guns. That's how you stop crimes. And we have beefed that up, and that is the law of the land now in the State of New York as well.

So, we're focusing on best practices, sharing information. And again, the partnership with the County Sheriff, our County District Attorney, the State Police, don't always take that for granted as well as the FBI, because a long time those silos, everybody does their own thing, they all want to get their own credit for something that happened. Now we have made them work together. I said, come on. I know how to make you work together. I've been a mom a long time, too. I can bring you all together and we've done that. There's cooperation, which is beautiful to see, and we're making a difference.

So, here's what I want to say in conclusion. We talk about profiles and courage and you'll be examining that concept more than this upcoming week. Mr. Rushdie spent more than a decade of his life in hiding. And finally he said, no more, I'm coming out. I'm coming out of the shadows. I will not be bowed by fear or a threat. And to those of us who go about our daily lives. If that's not an inspiration, I don't know what is. That inspires me to go out there and know, I will use every tool at my disposal, including my voice, to call out this radicalization that's going on, to call out anyone who perpetrates violence, whether they're a high profile individual or someone in the streets of Buffalo or Rochester, or our small towns or the boroughs of New York.

We have to call for an end to violence. And it's not just here in New York and our country. We just saw an attack on a bus in Israel, Middle East, where children, people from New York State, were on a bus, were attacked and are now struggling in a hospital.

It is a challenging world. And to the young people, I say sometimes it can be scary, but this is the United States of America, this is the State of New York. We are proud people. We're proud to have an institution that fosters these ideals makes us proud of them, shares this knowledge, because this is common to our DNA to speak up, to speak up loudly, so wisdom will always prevail over ignorance.

I'll also say, tolerance will always prevail over hate, courage will always prevail over fear, and the pen will always prevail over the knife.

Thank you. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for showing your appreciation for the Chautauqua ideal and onward to the next 150 years together.

Thank you very much.