Republican Bruce Blakeman branded Gov. Kathy Hochul a “useful tool” who takes orders from Mayor Zohran Mamdani and vowed to reverse New York’s high taxes and lawlessness.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the Republican nominee for New York governor, tore into Gov. Kathy Hochul in an exclusive interview with The Post, saying she now takes her cues from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the socialist wing of her party.
The 71-year-old county leader told reporter Rich Calder the race is a fight over taxes, utility costs, public safety, and whether Albany keeps drifting left. He said Hochul has a record of failure and leans on President Trump as a distraction because she cannot run on results.
Blakeman, who has not raised taxes a penny in five years as county executive, pledged to kill congestion pricing, put more cops on the street, slash income taxes, cut utility bills, and push back against Mamdani’s approach to policing and enforcement.
Pressed on Hochul’s standing inside her own party, Blakeman did not hedge. He cast her as a follower, not a leader, and tied her directly to the new mayor at City Hall.
He told The Post:
"I think Hochul is a useful tool of the socialist Democratic, anti-American movement in her party and that she is now taking orders from Zohran Mamdani, who clearly is the Democratic Party leader."
Blakeman said the urgency has only grown since January, when Mamdani took office. He argued the policies Hochul and Mamdani favor will wreck the economy and leave communities less safe. That clash over direction already shows up in fights over housing, taxes, and public order, including Mamdani housing chief controversies that have drawn sharp public pushback.
He rejected any “moderate” label for the governor. He pointed to what he called the highest taxes in the country, utility bills far above the national average, her backing of Mamdani, and joint campaigning with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Blakeman said:
"Well, I wouldn’t call her moderate. She’s an extremist. I don’t care what she calls herself, but let’s look at her record. The highest taxes in the United States. That’s extreme. Utility bills are 70% higher than the national average. That’s extreme. Backing Zohran Mamdani, who is antisemitic, anti-Christian, and anti-American. That’s extreme. Campaigning with AOC [Rep. Alexandia Ocasio-Cortez], who’s part of the hate America crowd in the Democratic Party. That’s extreme. So, I think her record is one of being an extreme, polarizing leader in our state. I want to be a unifier, unite people with the common purpose of making it more affordable and safer to live in New York."
Blakeman’s core contrast is simple. He says people are moving into Nassau County, not out, because taxes stayed flat and the county stayed safe. He cited seven bond upgrades, four budget surpluses, and a U.S. News & World Report ranking of Nassau as the safest county in America.
He framed Hochul’s New York as the opposite: high taxes, high utility rates, and a dead-last economic outlook. He called that ranking a national embarrassment for the Empire State.
On Trump, Blakeman said the president is his friend and has supported him. He also said his own decisions will turn only on what he believes serves New Yorkers. He accused Hochul of having little else to discuss. In Tuesday’s debate, she brought up Trump’s name roughly 20 times, the interview noted.
Blakeman said:
"Well, I have a history of not taking orders from anybody and bucking my party when I thought they were wrong. Donald Trump is my friend. He has supported me, and I have supported him. But the decisions that I make will be decisions made solely in what I feel is in the best interest of New Yorkers. Kathy Hochul has nothing else to talk about but Donald Trump because she has a record of failure and misery with high taxes, high utility bills, and lawlessness in our community."
He added that voters see the same pattern in city and state leadership, a point that tracks with other flashpoints where DHS has faulted Mamdani and Hochul over enforcement gaps.
Lower utility bills sat at the center of Blakeman’s affordability pitch. He held up Pennsylvania as the proof point. That state, he said, skips New York’s green-energy rules, allows natural-gas extraction, and posts bills more than 50% lower.
His plan: scrap what he called the green energy scam, boost supply including natural gas, and drive New York utility costs down to half of today’s levels.
Blakeman said:
"Well, let’s take Pennsylvania, for example. Pennsylvania doesn’t have the green energy scam, and they allow for the extraction of natural gas, and their bills are more than 50% less than New York. So, my strategy is as follows: get rid of the green energy scam; increase the supply of energy, including natural gas. By increasing the supply, we will be able to bring down utility costs to half of what they are now."
He tied the same affordability theme to a first-100-days push he outlined in April, including wiping out state income taxes for many households, repealing cashless bail, banning transgender students from girls’ school bathrooms and locker rooms, and ending congestion pricing. He said more Republicans in the Senate and Assembly, plus the governor’s budget leverage, would force deals. If lawmakers want their priorities, he wants his.
Public safety was the other hard line. Blakeman said he would force Mamdani to fill NYPD vacancies left by retirements and departures over the last year. He said officers left because they did not feel the mayor had their back.
He also said he would demand even-handed enforcement, not selective policing, and would block rhetoric he called threatening to Jewish communities.
Blakeman said:
"I will force Zohran Mamdani to fill the vacancies that have occurred with all the retirements and people leaving the Police Department in the last year, because they don’t feel [he] has their back... No. 2, I would force him to enforce the law, not be selective about enforcing the law, enforce the law across the board, and I will not let him make our communities less safe. And I will not let him target any community with what I feel is threatening rhetoric that makes people feel less safe, particularly in the Jewish communities of New York."
How? He pointed to the governor’s hold on the budget, the power to take over city departments, and emergency declarations. His bet is simpler: once he wins, Mamdani “will get the message” and change course. Tensions around the mayor’s posture already run hot on security and remembrance issues, including when retired Port Authority officers demanded Mamdani and Hochul stay away from a 9/11 anniversary ceremony.
On surveillance, Blakeman said Nassau uses technology to stop and solve crime under strict guardrails. Data cannot serve personal or political ends, only crime prevention or investigation. He backed a layered model: enough officers, hardened targets, cameras and facial recognition, plus shared intelligence. He said he has never talked with Madison Square Garden owner James Dolan about surveillance, even as a Super PAC tied to Dolan’s companies put $3 million behind Blakeman’s message. He said the law bars coordination and that he is matching Hochul dollar for dollar.
A Pollfinity survey released Tuesday showed Blakeman within three points of Hochul. He said the race is effectively tied, his fundraising pace is up, and the message is landing because New Yorkers feel miserable under current leadership.
He listed support from actor Debra Messing, a liberal Democrat; Bonnie Lautenberg, a lifelong Democrat and widow of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg; and former Democratic City Council member Bob Holden, who Blakeman said believes Hochul’s policies are damaging Queens. He welcomed national Republican help and said it has been adequate.
Blakeman also took aim at Attorney General Letitia James’s role as special prosecutor in the “Cornell 7” sexual assault case. He said her debate against Republican Saritha Komatireddy showed she would not follow the law or the facts. He said he would have picked experienced prosecutors such as Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney or Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly instead.
On former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 2021 sexual harassment scandal, which Cuomo denied, Blakeman said Hochul was among the first to call for resignation before due process. He called that move self-serving because she stood next in line as lieutenant governor.
Even cultural fights keep circling the same divide over Mamdani’s leadership, from tax strategy to foreign-policy flashpoints like the fury over Mamdani’s Oct. 7 anniversary remarks.
Blakeman said he has publicly offered Jets ownership a stadium site near the Nassau Coliseum. So far, he said, the team has signaled it is comfortable in New Jersey. He still called Long Island an excellent home and noted Hochul’s role in the $2.1 billion Buffalo Bills stadium partnership as a model of the public-private work he is willing to do.
He closed the interview on first principles. He said Albany has lost American values and that today’s Democratic leaders are not the Democrats he once dealt with, Ed Koch, Hugh Carey, Mario Cuomo, or Bill Clinton, men he said loved the country even when they disagreed. He grouped Mamdani, Ocasio-Cortez, and congressional candidates Darializa Avila Chevalier and Brad Lander on the other side of that line, and said Hochul is “completely subservient” to them.
That same leftward pull shows up in the political machinery around City Hall, including reports that Mamdani advisers have eyed influencer campaigns aimed at New York CEOs ahead of tax pushes.
Blakeman’s bet is that voters want the opposite: lower taxes, lower utility bills, safer streets, and a governor who puts New Yorkers first. He says he is peaking at the right time.
New York does not need another year of drift, excuses, and higher bills, it needs a governor who will finally side with the taxpayers who still call the state home.
