Mamdani, Hochul Accuse Trump Of Defunding The Police

NEW YORK — Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani blasted President Donald Trump on Tuesday for failing to make good on a promise to fully fund New York’s counterterrorism efforts.

Last year, the Department of Homeland Security nixed $187 million in federal counterterrorism funding doled out through its Homeland Security Grant Program, a move that led to bipartisan recriminations and a lawsuit. In early October, Trump blasted out a social media post indicating he would personally restore the cash.

At a joint press conference Tuesday at Hochul's Midtown office, the governor and New York City mayor said Trump never made good on his pledge: While DHS did provide $100 million to the state, New York is still short $87 million with just weeks before the 25th anniversary of 9/11.

“Here's my message to the president: Don't undermine our public safety efforts. Don't defund the police who thwart terror attacks. Don't play political games with people's lives,” Hochul said, turning the oft-used GOP attack line against Democrats on Trump. “Release the $87 million you owe us. Because if you don't release the counterterrorism funding, you're betraying every family that lost someone on 9/11.”

Mamdani noted that the money will mean fewer bomb squads operating in New York.

“We are not talking about reports or studies or abstract security proposals. We are talking about the money needed to fully fund 12 bomb squads across New York,” he said. “We are talking about the money needed to ensure that, in the event of a catastrophic attack, the FDNY can communicate internally and respond effectively, and we are talking about making sure that should New Yorkers ever face a radiological threat, our first responders have the training, the equipment and the capabilities they need to respond.”

Terence O'Leary, Hochul’s commissioner of homeland security, laid out other programs that will suffer from the cuts: counterterrorism preparation efforts, hazmat teams, tactical teams and urban search and rescue operations, along with cybersecurity and funding for the National Guard posted at sensitive transit locations.

In response, the Department of Homeland Security accused Hochul of sitting on $300 million in unspent funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA also argued New York has received more money than it actually needed in recent years.

“Instead of falsely accusing President Trump of defunding law enforcement, Governor Hochul and Mayor Mamdani should answer a much simpler question: Why is New York and NYC demanding even more taxpayer money when it has failed to spend hundreds of millions of dollars already provided to protect its communities?” a FEMA spokesperson said in a statement.

The governor’s office said those unspent funds are part of a routine cycle of federal allocations that, in this case, are designed to be spent over three years.

"The Trump administration is lying to cover up the fact that they are defunding the police," Hochul spokesperson Jen Goodman said.

Meanwhile, as Hochul and Mamdani were making their case, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin was in New York City touting the number of arrests U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has made and trashing a state law that limits local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration efforts — upping the stakes in the long simmering feud between Washington and Albany on the issue.

“Thanks to the hard work of the men and women of ICE and our federal partners, Operation Rotten Apple did what sanctuary politicians in New York City and the state of New York refuse to do: made the Empire State safer,” Mullin said while touting the arrest of more than 2,000 undocumented immigrants that, according to DHS, included people convicted of violent crimes.

Hochul pushed back, arguing that crime has gone down in recent years in both the state and the city, where shootings and murders are at record lows. She noted the new state law had no bearing on New York City, which already limited its cooperation with ICE to cases where someone committed a violent or serious crime.

And she argued that many of the people arrested by the Trump administration had no such criminal history.

“They consider anybody who crossed the border a criminal,” she said. “So don't fall for that.”