Governor Hochul Discusses Fighting Back Against Trump

0:28Ben Meiselas:We'll see you next time. Feeding the fam isn't easy, but we got you with Denny's Slam and Meal Deals starting at$5.99. Full meals for everyone, like a Grand Slam burrito for grandpa and a Super Slam for super mom. Get to Denny's now. Ballot at participating locations for dine-in or denny's.com. Limited time offer. Additional restrictions may apply at some locations. My name's Mackenzie, and I started a GoFundMe for the adoptive mother of a nonverbal autistic child. The mother had lost her job because she wasn't able to find adequate care for this autistic child. So she really needed some help with living expenses, paying some back bills.

1:05Ben Meiselas:So I launched a GoFundMe to help support them during this crisis. And we raised about$10 ,000 within just a couple of months. I think that the surprising thing was by telling a clear story and just like really being very clear about what we needed. We had some really generous donations from people who were really moved by the situation that this family was struggling with. GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform trusted by over 200 million people. Start your GoFundMe today at GoFundMe.com. That's GoFundMe.com. GoFundMe.com. This podcast is supported by GoFundMe. For everyone who solves crime from their couch, knows more about forensics than their own job, and has trust issues with small town sheriffs, Amazon Music's millions of podcast episodes are calling.

1:56Ben Meiselas:Just download the Amazon Music app and start listening to your favorite true crime podcasts ad-free. Included with Prime. That right there is the face of a beaten and defeated man. Just look at MAGA Mike Johnson being hit with the ultimate karma he deserves heading into the midterms. Or take a look at Donald Trump in fear, in panic, as his regime is in collapse. And we have different cabinet members and top officials pointing fingers at each other. Kristi Noem blaming Stephen Miller. Stephen Miller blaming Kristi Noem. They're all leaking to corporate news and regime media. They're blaming the border patrol.

2:38Ben Meiselas:It is utter chaos. And when Donald Trump's been giving speeches over the past 24 to 48 hours, he's really being hit by that instant karma as he's getting kind of fact-checked to his face. He had that disastrous appearance in Iowa where there was someone there at this like diner where he was trying to stage this affordability event. And as Daniel Dale says, in an unusual moment, Trump was fact-checked by a woman in the crowd at his Iowa speech yesterday who was on scene. Donald Trump said, I've lowered gas to$1.95 or$1.85 in Iowa. The woman shouted, no, you didn't. Gas is$2.63. Stop lying. It was$2.69 at the station right outside the venue.

3:25Ben Meiselas:And the state averages$2.57. GasBuddy found just four stations out of 2 ,036 in the state were actually selling for under$2. He's just out there making things up, folks. And one of the things to mention as well is that, so he did this speech in Iowa earlier in the week. Then he did this speech where he did like a speech with Nicki Minaj, the rapper, and then he handed her a gold card where she now gets to be like a citizen. She was undocumented, but then she professed her love to Donald Trump and MAGA, and she was given a gold card. And the whole thing was really weird. And Donald Trump was like, Nicki Minaj has these great long nails and look at her.

4:08Ben Meiselas:I want nails like that. But one of the things I want to focus on right now is that as the American people are struggling, as the American people are suffering, psychologically tortured, living paycheck to paycheck, if they're lucky enough to even have a paycheck right now, they can't afford homes, can't afford groceries, but inflation's rising. It's not dropping. Let's be very clear about that. And then Donald Trump's attacking the idea of low income housing as though low income housing is some sort of disease or plague. And Donald Trump in the speech, he was attacking Governor Gavin Newsom of California and saying he was lying about like what Newsom's plans are.

4:46Ben Meiselas:And Donald Trump's like, you can't ever put low income housing in rich, wealthy areas that were burned down by the fires. You can't do that. And then Trump signed like a made up executive order saying that the federal government is now taking over disaster relief in Los Angeles based on the fires from last January. And it's like, just give the disaster relief money, basically the 40 billion dollars that's needed to rebuild these communities that the Trump regime is withholding. But instead of actually giving the money, Donald Trump is bashing the idea of low income housing in general, like low income housing, some horrible thing.

5:26Ben Meiselas:even though that's not even what the plan is in Los Angeles and doing fake executive orders saying that he's going to be taking over Los Angeles and just give them money. Here's what Donald Trump said, though, where he said low income housing. This is like a horrible thing. Here, play this clip. And I don't want a big section of the area built into low income housing. They want to put low income housing right smack in the middle of it. And that's not the American dream. You know, you didn't do that. And low income housing is great. I built a lot of low income housing, but you don't put it there.

6:00Ben Meiselas:This is one of the richest neighborhoods in the world. And now Donald Trump was also fact checked by the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. And Jerome Powell made it clear that job gains have remained low. Non-farm payrolls declined. This is not good stuff. The economic data is horrible. Play this clip. The unemployment rate was 4.4 % in December and has changed little in recent months. Job gains have remained low. Total non-farm payrolls declined at an average pace of$22 ,000 per month over the last three months, excluding government employment. And as the economic data is horrible, as people's pocketbooks are being hit hard, as 96 % of the tariffs were passed through to the consumers who had to eat it, the consumers, It is a tax on the consumer, on Americans.

6:50Ben Meiselas:The corporation in America pays the tariff and it's passed on. But setting that aside, federal spending is through the roof. I know that is. I guess it's only when Democratic presidents exist where people start talking about, oh, the deficit is up and all of the debt. I mean, the way Trump is running up this deficit and the MAGA Republicans, it is awful. A new CBO analysis reveals that the Trump regime spent about$496 million last year to deploy the National Guard to six cities. It's about$100 million a month is what the, that's our taxpayer dollars going to torture people using Trump's military forces when he tries to use the National Guard.

7:33Ben Meiselas:Take a look right here, though. This was when Donald Trump was at that diner that I mentioned earlier. It's in Iowa. And Donald Trump's like mocking the people there and mocking the Americans, bragging about making your life savings into a yo-yo. Trump's like, I can make the economy do a yo-yo if I want it. I'll make it do a yo-yo. Here, play this clip. Would you like to see the dollar's value decline more? Would that be - No, no, I'd want it to be just seek its own level, which is the fair thing to do. You could I could have it go up or go down like a yo-yo. I'll give you an example, unemployment.

8:09I could create the greatest unemployment numbers or employment numbers ever. All I have to do is hire three million people and put them into the federal government and you have 10 people for one job, right?

8:22Ben Meiselas:Going back to MAGA Mike Johnson, MAGA Mike Johnson has not condemned the attack on Ilhan Omar by that deranged, demented individual who sprayed things on her with a syringe. No statements about MAGA Mike on that. No statements about the murder by the Trump Gestapo of Alex Preti. MAGA Mike didn't do that. But MAGA Mike did have time to hug Nicki Minaj and talk about her coat and her nails. This is what it means to be a MAGA Republican today, just being completely and utterly demented. Play this clip. I almost wore this coat today. I'm so glad I didn't. And then also the utter corruption, the right-wing oligarchy on full display as Melania for reasons that are unclear other than the right-wing oligarchy giving us all the middle finger.

9:14Ben Meiselas:She went to the New York Stock Exchange to promote her movie Melania that was funded by$70 million, maybe even more from Bezos. Gave her$40 million for a licensing deal for the film, another$30 million for marketing. Nobody wants to see this. The film's like banned, by the way, in South Africa. And so while Amazon's cutting 16 ,000 jobs, and we've seen job cuts announced this week and other major companies as well. Amazon cutting 16 ,000, but 70 million to Melania. That makes sense. That's what the people want to hear right now. Pinterest laying off 15 % of its workforce. Citigroup laying off tons of employees.

9:55Ben Meiselas:ASML plans to cut 1 ,700 employees. Cuts, cuts, cuts. Melania, though, is right there ringing in the bell. Here, play this clip.

10:10Ben Meiselas:Oh, and this is what's going on at Mar-a-Lago. It's not even let them eat cake. It is let's do more eyes wide shut style parties nonstop at Mar-a-Lago as the country is reeling right now from the murder of Alex Preti, from the ICE Gestapo raids that continue. At Mar-a-Lago, guests were greeted by showgirls in outfits, shipping champagne by the pool with their legs spread at Mar-a-Lago. That's what was going on. They were in bubble balls with their legs spread, showgirls at Mar-a-Lago. The family values party, everybody. The family values party. And meanwhile, Donald Trump is whining that his golden ballroom is not being built.

10:54Ben Meiselas:A federal judge appointed by George W. Bush, Judge Leon, is presiding over a lawsuit by the Washington, D.C. National Historic Preservation Society to block the construction of the ballroom. And they're doing a pretty good job in front of this federal judge, Leon, who's very skeptical about Trump's ability to tear down the East Wing and build a ballroom. I think Trump may be permanently enjoined or blocked from building this thing. Federal Judge Leon said the following, where do you see the authority for the president to tear down the East Wing and build something in its place? And when the Trump regime lawyers tried to compare it to Gerald Ford using private donations for a swimming pool, Judge Leon said, you compare ripping down the East Wing and building a new East Wing to a swimming pool?

11:44Ben Meiselas:Are you absolutely out of your mind? Speaking about out of your mind, you've got Melania on state regime media saying that Brett Ratner, Brett, disgraced individual Brett Ratner, is very talented at the box office as she continues to promote her film. Play this clip right here. The director, that's Brett Ratner? Ratner. Yeah, how did that go? He hasn't been involved in movies in a couple of years. How was that relationship? Very good. He was very talented. I know that and box offices could tell you, right, that he was very talented. And we had other suggestions and looking into it. And he was the one that he, I said, you know, the most important is that he puts out my idea, what I have and cinematic film that I want to achieve.

12:40So he was the best one and he was great to work with.

12:43Ben Meiselas:Let's bring in New York Governor Kathy Hochul. Governor Hochul, great to see you. You've repeatedly called for the end of Donald Trump and his regime's occupation of Minnesota and cities and towns across this country. And you use that term that this is an occupation, that essentially it's an invasion of our cities and towns. Get out now and just shuffling the deck and removing Bovino as bad as he is and bringing in Tom Homan. That's not what the people want. Right. I mean, they just want get ICE and Border Patrol back to what you just get them out of there. Talk to us about that. Yeah. Put ICE where it was.

13:25January 19, 2025. Can we go in the way back machine to prior to Donald Trump's militarization of this force that's supposed to protect our borders from transnational criminals and terrorists and work with the border patrol to keep our streets safe? They've totally lost their way. They've lost the original mission, which is to protect our communities. And their definition of criminals is someone who left their home country under dire circumstances like my own grandparents did. They left great poverty. They were told they had to leave because they would starve. They came here, became migrant farm workers and worked at factories.

14:07So people who just come here in search of that life, they're treating as if they're criminals. And that's just wrong. And what is happening in my friend Tim Walz's state and in the cities is abhorrent on every level, it is un-American. And as I'm continuing to watch again, Ken Burns' American Revolution, and I think about those ragtag groups of individuals who banded together as patriots and stood up to this abuse of power and put us on a track to have a democracy that has held strong for 250 years and is becoming unraveled before our eyes. So we must be the ones who stand up to this and call it out and use all the powers at our lever to fight back.

14:49Ben Meiselas:You know, and now you have people in the administration pointing fingers at each other. You have Kristi Noem saying the reason why I use the term domestic terrorists was because Stephen Miller wrote it. And then Stephen Miller said the Border Patrol was telling me that it's their fault. And so they're all pointing fingers and no one's taking accountability. And now you have the Department of Homeland Security saying, well, the reason we came out and said that Alex Preddy was a domestic terrorist was it was a chaotic situation. So we just thought that's what we had to say. And I mean, everybody knows that's just not how leadership is conducted.

15:24Ben Meiselas:You don't just go out and start defaming people. But that seems to be their instinct with everything is just they don't think about things. And it's just immediately attack, defame, rip apart. You know, it's it's we see this over and over again, not just here, but everything they do. The whole crew has to go then, right? If they don't know how to run agencies that have been run, you know, for decades before the NICE was basically established in its current form after 9-11, yes, to protect us from terrorists, and they just don't know what they're doing. And so we can't have this level of incompetence at an agency that's so important to our society if they did it right.

16:01The way it's done now is just, it's a joke. So they should clean house, kick their asses out of town and say, we're starting over and stop militarizing our streets with people who have literally days or weeks of training compared to the police officers that I go to their graduations. I support our police here in the state of New York. And they have six months of in-person training. They leave their families and they're trained in conflict de-escalation and all the other strategies you want someone to have before you give them a gun. And I'm sick and tired of masked people roving our streets, terrorizing kids, taking kids, using them as bait, and I'm New York's first mom governor and you start messing with kids, I'm going to be pissed off more than anybody.

16:47And so that's my state of mind right now. There's an anger, but it's also leading to policies and changes here in New York as we all try to figure out at the state level how we can protect the integrity of our states and our morals and our values that have gotten us through all these decades. And now they're under attack and we have to stand up.

17:08Ben Meiselas:I think that's an important point. And it gets lost in sometimes how corporate news covers politics as, you know, gamification. Who's ahead? Who's up? What this person? Is this person really good? Versus can we just take a step back here and say, like, what are we doing? This is good versus evil in many cases. This is just about basic morality and decency. I mean, having masked individuals walk through the street and terrorize people is bad. I mean, when Donald Trump and his regime take away people's health care and don't extend affordable care subsidies like that's bad, it is it is hurting people when RFK is out there changing the vaccine recommendations and we're seeing measles surge and other diseases that have been prevented before on the rise like that's just these are just bad things that government should not be inflicting pain upon us at like just a basic level.

18:04And I don't know what their political calculation is, but you basically antagonized everybody in the country, right? You know, the, you know, Hispanics who thought they, you were promising just to get rid of the, the baddest of the bad, right? The criminals, the terrorists, the, you know, the human traffickers, the drug dealers, you know, many of them supported the president, Not all certainly, but many did because they bought into his message of affordability. A lot of people bought into the message of affordability. Prices are going to come down day one. Remember that one? My God, the cost of ground beef and all the things that you need to buy for your families are just going off the charts.

18:42And I'm trying here in New York to make it more affordable. And it's a challenge because I've got tariffs driving up costs for my farmers. And so therefore, their products must be more expensive. and the cost of everything is going up for my small businesses. And for God's sakes, we're at war with Canada. You know, I have a 432-mile border with Canada. They're our friends. They come and spend money in our hotels and our little bed and breakfasts and our tourism areas and stimulate our economy and buy our products. It's our largest trading partner. We're at war with Canada. So, we need a Project 2029 to know when we have a Democratic president, which we must have, how to put it all back.

19:26We have put the genie back in the bottle and regain some sense of normalcy. So, generations from now, when they say, what did you do when your democracy is being shredded by people in search of unfettered power in Washington and surrounding themselves with a bunch of cronies who have no spine? Where were you? Did you stand up and try to save our country? The answer better be yes. And it's going to be yes for those who look at what New York did because we have no choice. So what is being, I just feel like we're under attack. The farmers are under attack. The migrant communities and immigrant communities are under attack.

20:02Struggling parents are under attack. I don't know who doesn't feel other than people making a ton of money on Wall Street right now. Okay, that's why our economy looks good, but it's really not. And we have layoffs. People are now starting to lose their jobs. Donald Trump pulled the plug on the largest public sector infrastructure project in America today to rebuild a tunnel between York and New Jersey for trains that was damaged during Hurricane Sandy a decade ago. We're ready to do this. We've been working on it. 10 ,000 jobs. And all of a sudden he says, no, you guys aren't very nice to me.

20:37And he pulled the plug. Seriously? These people may have voted for you. these union guys might have voted for you, Mr. Trump, and now you're going to be laying them all off because the money's running out in a matter of two days. So these are the kind of fights that we have to take on. In addition to, I have hospitals that are teetering on the edge because they lost the money they needed from Medicaid. So states like New York that strongly are proud of our heritage as being a progressive state where we led the women's rights movement and the LGBTQ plus movement and the environmental movement and early in the fights in civil rights, we're proud of that heritage.

21:16But this is the equivalent of that combined because this is an attack on everyone, not just one group or another. This is an attack on everyone. And the consequences are so severe. So I can rant all day, Ben, because you can tell this has hit a nerve as a leader of a state that I cherish. And I want to continue to be that guiding light for others and say we do it differently in New York, but we certainly have a fight on our hands.

21:41Ben Meiselas:Here's what he said about you yesterday on the Sid Rosenberg show. He said, Governor Hochul, she calls me. Hi, President. Hi, hi. How you doing? Could not be nicer. She wants to build windmills all over the place. She cannot be nicer. And then I'll see her the following day on television knocking the hell out of me. I mean, setting aside that these seem to be the musings of a second grader, because the fact that you say hi, that's nice to me. When I read things like this, like, what are you talking about? You have a job to do as the governor of New York to defend and protect your state, especially when he's invading it.

22:23Ben Meiselas:Saying hi to somebody, you know, he views, wow, so nice. It's just a very strange framing of, I don't know, it just doesn't even seem the way adults communicate. I can get into him saying these things about you, but this isn't the way grownups talk to each. It's very strange. You know, Ben, bullies hate being stood up to, right? They don't like it. And I grew up in Buffalo. You know, family has a lot of brothers, big Catholic family, a big family packed in a tiny house. We didn't have much when we started out. My parents used to live in a trailer park, and I know how to fight back. I've been trained to fight back my whole life.

23:00So what I said to the president when he first got elected, I called and congratulated him. Mr. President, there are areas we can work on together. Let's redo Penn Station. It looks like a hellhole. Everybody hates going. Let's redo that. Let's work on building infrastructure. Let's do big projects. But if you come after New York State, our people, our values, our beliefs, you're going to have to have a fight with me because that's who I am. So we can be nice and work together. I had to call him because he literally shut off offshore wind, which is scheduled next year to bring clean, renewable power to half a million homes in Brooklyn.

23:34Just turn it off because I don't like wind. You just threw a whole lot of people out of work, too, Mr. President. And they voted for you. I know they did because they're from Long Island. So these are the kind of conversation. Yeah, I'll open up and say hi. I'll call up and say hi. Yeah, hi. It's the first thing you say in a normal conversation, right? Hi. How you doing? then I go off on time by Venezuela and all sorts of tangent that's fine I mean I want to keep the dialogue open it's important but don't think that's going to censor me the next day when I'm getting asked about what I think about what's going on because I'm going to speak out I'm from

24:07Ben Meiselas:Long Island and so uh I think we're changing I hope which I don't know what happened to us there and that's why I grew up in Nassau County I went back and I but I think things are actually changing now in Long Island as I think they're seeing, you know, some of the issues. I think that, you know, an area like Long Island, I'm running, you know, my challenger is the county executive of Nassau County in the November election, who has, you know, who Donald Trump said is 100 % mega. That's all I need to put on the ads, 100 % mega. And that should serve us well. He is out there defending ICE, by the way.

24:41He is defending ICE. He started his own militia. He actually has 10 of his county paid for police officers deployed with ICE directly. So he's I love Nassau County, but the leadership is really challenged and compromised right now. And we'll put an end to that next November. So that being said, I do think a nerve has been touched in this country. There's been an awakening, which I think you add up all these individual fights are now finally culminating in the death of two individuals. individuals, two 37-year-olds who are doing nothing other than just exercising their rights of free speech and the right to protest.

25:22Those have been with us since the very beginning, the founding of our nation, and we're not going to surrender those. And so I think finally, this is a change. This is a sea change in people's attitudes. And I'm sorry it took their deaths, but also it is now time for us to say enough is enough. Kristi Noem needs to be held responsible. They're right now thwarting investigations because they're lying about them. They cannot be trusted. They cannot be trusted any longer. They must be called to resign, fired, or impeached. Get out of town and stop doing the damage and try to rebuild the trust that we work so hard with local law enforcement to have with the communities.