Bruce Blakeman on the race for NY governor

Well, this morning we are highlighting the race for New York governor, Democrat incumbent Governor Kathy Hochul, facing off against Republican challenger Bruce Blakeman. This was at the debate last week right here. The two of them sparring over taxes, immigration, high cost of living here in New York. Joining us right now, the current Nassau County executive and gubernatorial candidate, Bruce Blakeman. Nice to have you back on Good Day. Always a pleasure. So I see there's a new poll out. I don't know if it's from your inside Republican people, but you're within striking distance of Kathy Hochul. It's an independent poll. It's got us in a virtual dead heat. It matches our internal polling, and I'm sure it matches Kathy Hochul's polling because she spent $6 million in the last two weeks attacking me. You don't attack your opponent unless you're in big trouble because she's just raising my name ID. OK, so let's talk about how you're really going to do it, because you talked a lot about lowering taxes. I mean, affordability is across the board. How can you really do that? Well, first of all, we're the highest taxed state in the United States of America. So we can reduce taxes and reduce the amount of revenue we get. We don't have a revenue problem. We've got a spending problem. Our budget is twice the size of the state of Florida. There's four million more people in Florida. So, Bruce, what would you get rid of that we're paying for right now so it would lower our taxes? First of all, there's got to be so much fraud, waste, and abuse in government. As we saw yesterday, there was a federal government investigation into fraud into Medicaid. Kathy Hochul is supposed to be in charge of that and make sure that we get quality services but not rip off the taxpayers. The taxpayers are being ripped off. We're spending $8 billion over the last four years and another $1.7 billion this year on illegal migrants, giving them free food, free housing, free transportation, free cell phone and free health care at our taxpayer expense. They get more than New Yorkers. If you go on unemployment, if you go on unemployment in New York State, you get less than someone who comes here illegally and claims asylum. Eighty one thousand per person. It's insane. It's got to stop doing that. They're still doing it. You're one of your big proposals is energy costs. You say that they have gone up. You're also in favor of fracking in New York State. Would you want to overturn some of those fracking rules? Well, we have to overturn those rules because take a look at Florida. They have a Democrat governor, Josh Shapiro. He allows for the extraction of natural gas in the same reserve that we have here in New York State. It's right on the border. In his state, their utility bills are half of ours. We can cut ours in half by extracting that natural gas and not investing in science projects like wind turbines in the middle of the ocean or solar farms. What about some of the environmental concerns that come with fracking? I mean, you always hear about the regulations that are needed. Would you want to see some of those put in place as well? Pennsylvania has not had any environmental issues. they have the technology now to make it safe to extract that natural gas we need to extract that natural gas we're sitting on one of the largest reserves in Pennsylvania on that side of the border people are driving around in brand new Cadillac Escalades on the New York side of the border they're driving around in 25 year old rusted out pickup trucks we don't have the economic development we don't have the prosperity that's why our taxes are so high and that's why our utility bills are so high we are number 50 in economic outlook 50 it doesn't get worse than that. There's only 50 states. So we need to create jobs and prosperity. Jobs are leaving here. Hundreds of thousands of jobs. Hundreds of thousands of people are leaving here. We've got to change the policies of Kathy Hochul that are destroying the state. We're in a death spiral right now. You talked about taxes. Governor Hochul might point to the quadrupling of tax credits for things like volunteer firefighters. Are you saying that something like that is not enough? Would you support a proposal like that? Of course. I urged her to do it, and She didn't sign it until I said, this bill has been sitting there on your desk for three years. Sign it. And that's when she signed it. And apparently, she's been more active in the last two months because there's an active campaign than she has in the previous five years that she's served as governor. This state is almost dead last in all of the measurements where you want to be at the top. And we have to change the whole philosophy of this state. We've got to create good jobs with good benefits. We've got to have safer communities. I was up in Washington Heights yesterday. People were coming up to me and begging me to clean up their neighborhoods, to get the drug dealers out, to get the people out who are committing petty crimes. There are crimes that have consequences because it hurts local business. The shoplifting is rampant. You can't go in a CVS, you can't go in a Duane Reade and buy a bottle of shampoo without ringing a buzzer. A store clerk has to come, unlock a glass door just to get a bottle of shampoo. You need a private shopper. I went to get Halloween candy the other day. I'm like, that's locked up now, too. Anti-Semitic crime. We're seeing more and more Democrats now coming out and supporting you because they're concerned about anti-Semitic crime. I know you said you like Jessica Tisch, our police commissioner. What's going on? How would you solve this problem right now? Well, first of all, you have a mayor that's aligned with Kathy Hochul. She endorsed him. He endorsed her. They campaigned together. Who is inflaming anti-Semitism in this city. His socialist programs are antithetical to capitalism. And quite frankly, I think he's not just anti-Semitic. I think he's anti-Christian. And I can go through a litany of things of why I think he's anti-Christian. But the fact of the matter is, this is a guy that's the most divisive mayor we've ever had in the city. He's got people at each other's throats. And you see what's going on in Paris and Milan? Those are his people. Those are the socialists. That could happen here if you don't have a strong governor to keep him in check. And talking about crime, you often say that crime is out of control, specifically New York City. The NYPD would argue that crime stats in general are down, especially some of the major crimes. If you were elected, would you want to keep Jessica Tisch on as police commissioner? Absolutely. I think she is the only bright spot in the Mondami administration. I think that she is a very experienced person, a very balanced person. And I think she struck a good balance with the policing here. But I think she's very frustrated. She's not being allowed to do the job that she wants to do. And I think if we just leave her alone and let her do her job, that she'll do a very, very good job. I have a lot of confidence in Jessica Tisch. When we talk about e-bike registration, right now Albany is not saying anything at all about registering. Jersey's already doing it. The city council is working on like 27 bills to try to get it under control. what would you do if you were you were governor you'd have to register it if you didn't register it i'd have the police confiscate your e-bike and destroy it the fact of the matter is these e-bikes are creating chaos with pedestrians they're creating chaos they're creating chaos with traffic they're weaving in and out they're all over the place they're going the wrong way down streets they're on the sidewalks they're all over the place i mean this city is going to hell right now with the policies of Kathy Hochul and Eric Adams. It's like chaos everywhere. And by the way, murders in the subways are up almost 100 percent this year. There's been seven murders in the subways just this year. So I don't know what crime statistics people are quoting, but people don't feel safe in their communities. I want to make them safe. I have the safest county in America, according to U.S. News and World Report, because we make that a priority. Every community i don't care what community you live in i don't care what the demographic is what your race religion ethnic group is your ability your lifestyle everybody wants safer neighborhoods they want less taxes and they want lower utility rates i will deliver that as governor bruce blakeman we thank you so much for coming on good day new york and just so you know in the interest of fairness uh we've reached out to governor Hochul and her people several times and i know i've done it um and they have not committed to an interview with us at this time okay thank you and congratulations. Thank you. Tomorrow I'm getting an award from the broadcaster. We'll be there. Sid and Bill Ritter, wow. Congratulations. Thank you, Bruce. Thank you, Bruce.