Gov. Kathy Hochul reflects on 1 year in office: "I knew I had to change an entire culture, top to bottom"
NEW YORK -- It has been one year since Kathy Hochul stepped into the governor's office, and since then, she has faced a lot of unanticipated crises -- Hurricane Ida that left 16 dead in New York City, the Brooklyn subway shooting, the Buffalo supermarket massacre and, of course, the task of proving herself as the first woman to ever serve as governor of New York.
CBS2 political reporter Marcia Kramer sat down with the governor Thursday to talk about the past 12 months and, of course, the elephant in the room, the man she replaced.
Hochul was Andrew Cuomo's lieutenant governor for nearly seven years. The two were never close, but when a sexual harassment scandal forced Cuomo out of office, Hochul faced many challenges, not the least of which was to prove she was the "un-Cuomo" and could rule Albany without the bombast and Machiavellian scheming of her predecessor.
Watch the full interview
"I wonder if it was hard to step into Andrew Cuomo's shoes," Kramer said.
"I knew I had to change an entire culture, top to bottom," Hochul said. "I had a lot of work to do, so I never thought about the shadow of someone else because this was what I was called to do ... I knew exactly what was required, and we just rolled up our sleeves and got to work."
"What did you think of him?" Kramer asked.
"I thought that he was a strong leader at a time when we needed a strong leader, but also had a lot of personal issues that now there's consequences," Hochul said.
Hochul is too much of a lady to talk about Cuomo's legendary bullying of the legislature and his almost pathological need to stomp all over New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, but in an interview to mark her first year in office, she did say she would have handled COVID differently -- not only nursing home patients, but the decision to close schools.
"Would you shut down schools again? I think the resounding answer is no. You have to figure out how to keep these kids in a learning environment. Protect them, but my God, we're still dealing with the fallout for a generation of kids who lost two years of growth," Hochul said.
To mark her first 12 months on the job, the governor's office put out a long list of accomplishments, including her efforts to deal with the two Supreme Court rulings that affected New York -- the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the decision allowing New Yorkers to carry concealed weapons. She got the legislature to pass bills moderating the decisions and also got lawmakers to modify bail reform.
She says it's because she likes to work behind the scenes, not engage in public brow beating.
"I've had a lot of strong battles, but what you don't see is them played out in epic fashion where there's this clashing going on because you know what that does? It makes people anxious," Hochul said. "I don't have to have a headline saying I won that battle."
Kramer also asked the governor about congestion pricing and the pushback she's getting from New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and the possibility that New Jersey drivers who take the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels won't pay a congestion fee.
"I've not dealt with that specific question. I know that's on his mind, and we have a conversation that's forthcoming," Hochul said.
The governor told Kramer that her best day in office was day one, and the worst was when her then-lieutenant governor Brian Benjamin was indicted on the same day as the Sunset Park subway shooting.
Meanwhile, her Republican gubernatorial opponent, Lee Zeldin, put out his own list of Hochul's worst days, which included the indictment of Benjamin.
