Audio & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Discusses Tariffs, Ice and Social Media on MSNOW’s Morning Joe

Earlier today, Governor Hochul was a Guest on MSNOW's "Morning Joe."

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Willie Geist, MSNOW: Governor Hochul, great to see you this morning. Let's start right there with the decision, the settlement from Meta up to $17 billion. The hope was that this now would set the standard, YouTube, TikTok, Snap, others would fall in behind, and that social media would be made safer, especially for young people. What is your take on how significant this move is and what might come next?

Governor Hochul: I would call it an important step in the right direction, Willie, but in New York State, we've actually gone further in many respects. I launched an initiative last year and the year before and the year before that, to try and rein in the excesses of social media when it came to really destroying many of our children's mental health. And first of all, I want to applaud all the families that stepped forward here with their stories of losing children to suicide and depression, and the young people came forward to help us get to this place. But I would say [it's] an important step, but I think there's still going to be an important role for states and ultimately the federal government someday, when they feel like they have time to do something other than rename lakes. I would like to see a better focus at the government level to regulate this and bring in all the platforms.

In New York State, all the platforms are covered by our first-in-the-nation rules saying no addictive algorithms can be bombarding our young people under the age of 18. You can have no notifications at all after midnight. Our kids need to get to sleep. And what helped all of this was our - separate from the social media company, we don't allow cell phones in schools. From the day that child walks - the second they walk in the door to the second they walk out - and that has done a lot to restore the mental health of our students in New York State. But I think it's a good settlement, but we're not done. We're not done. This fight is not over.

Willie Geist, MSNOW: Yeah, this may be a good step, but as you point out, many people are skeptical about these companies policing themselves and creating rules that might cut into their profits, which ultimately, as we know from all the whistleblower documents, is really all they cared about, the child safety be damned. So what is the role, do you think, of the federal government? You're doing it on a state level, but what could the federal government be doing better to help keep kids safe on social media?

Governor Hochul: Right. I'll give, I'll send the federal government - whoever wants to see it - the New York State laws, we've done this for years now. And focus on everything from banning access to AI chatbots - these young people are developing relationships, their first relationship is not with a human being anymore, and we have to save them from that - we also believe that no child should have their personal data monetized. These are bombarding our kids, capturing information about them so they can sell them products later. We don't allow that in the State of New York either. So I would very happily share the laws we've passed in New York, which is why we were named by Jonathan Haidt's organization, the number one state in America for protecting the mental health of young people. I'm proud of that, but we never rest on our laurels, and we're always trying to stay ahead of the next curve because they're out there trying to make money, and I'm trying to protect kids as New York's first mom governor.

Willie Geist, MSNOW: And we'll see if these other companies fall in line, YouTube and the others. Let's turn to immigration, Governor. ICE arrests have surged to record levels this summer, reaching 43,000 in June, 49,000 in July. That's according to newly released federal data. An analysis from The New York Times shows most people arrested last month had no criminal charge or conviction, while fewer than 4% had a past violent conviction. 4%. Arrests have risen across the country with Texas averaging more than 380 per day and Florida more than 230. New Jersey, New Mexico also have seen arrests double. So Governor, this data from the federal government confirms what we already knew, which is that this administration is not going after the worst of the worst. We've seen just in the last week these scenes at bus stops around schools in Connecticut. We've seen scenes in hospital rooms where a mother and a daughter were arrested in hospital gowns after getting into a car accident. So what does the relationship in your state look like between law enforcement on the state level and ICE coming in from the federal level?

Governor Hochul: Let me just step back for a second. You absolutely hit on this, Willie. Everybody who voted for Donald Trump believed he was going after the worst of the worst. That's what he promised. That was a flat-out lie. Because if he was going after the worst of the worst, I would think in the first few months they would've identified the known criminals, or those that they have charges against, or people who need to be extradited back to their country because of a criminal offense - now we're going after everybody from high school kids on Long Island to people going to their job on a farm, the home healthcare aides - we have devastated the home healthcare industry in the state of New York when we send back the Haitians who are very good at this work and they have relationships with senior citizens who are wondering why their aide did not show up the next day to take care of them.

So what our relationship with law enforcement is - I will say this clearly because the Republicans are just absolutely lying about my position - New York State will never be a sanctuary for criminals. Full stop. We work with federal law enforcement, including ICE, when it comes to protecting New Yorkers, and that means we'll always have and always will work to get criminals off the streets and in the criminal justice system, get their justice, go to jail, and then go back to their home country. That's how we do it in New York.

But what we had before was, there were counties that had relationships with ICE - formal agreements where they would actually be using local law enforcement for civil immigration enforcement. I'm not talking about criminals. I'm talking about someone who, the only offense is coming into this country, and these are people with temporary protective status. Maybe they had a green card, a work permit, married to an American citizen - they're going after everybody because they have to hit those inane Stephen Miller quotas.

So I've said, and we passed a law and it went into effect just this week, you cannot have those agreements with ICE to be using local cops for doing your job, ICE. I want local cops focused on local crimes. And crime has gone down dramatically since I've been governor in the State of New York for the last five years, and it's because I've invested money in law enforcement. We're building trust between communities and law enforcement. It has nothing to do with having our local police diverted from catching the rapists, catching the murderers, responding to an emergency, and doing ICE's job for them. It's an $85 billion agency. I think they can take care of themselves.

In fact, I wish they would just disband and go back to the old Immigration and Naturalization Service. Remember old INS? People trusted them. They did their jobs. This is a rogue policing state that is wreaking havoc across America. In New York, we say: No more.

Mike Barnicle, MSNOW: So can you prevent the ICE, at the federal level, from securing agreements with local police forces in New York State?

Governor Hochul: I just banned it. It's against the law now in the State of New York to have these agreements. The federal law that allows the creation of these agreements says "Subject to state and local laws." State law just changed. So no more. No more. And we had to force every county that was participating - and I will say, the vast majority of counties in New York State were not. They were not participating, and those are among the safest counties in America. So the false argument that the Republicans continue to make - and DHS has been hitting me hard on this - they keep saying I've made New York State less safe. I'd rather stand with the criminals. That is full unadulterated BS.

Mike Barnicle, MSNOW: Are they fighting this? Are the feds fighting this?

Governor Hochul: No, they're just trying to fight me on social media. No, they can't stop us. I already did it. It's done.

Ali Vitali, MSNOW: It's done.

Governor Hochul: It's done.

Ali Vitali, MSNOW: Something else that is happening, maybe not quite done, is this trade war that we see with Canada. I'm a New Yorker. I learned about trade, what we do on the world stage in elementary school. I know that about 13% of New York trade is done with Canada. I was struck by the fact that Senator Susan Collins in Maine said that she had received carve-outs or exemptions from the Canadians' retaliatory tariffs on seafood and fish products. And I wonder if New York State, if you are seeking any kinds of carve-outs to soften the blow on the New York economy.

Governor Hochul: We're doing everything we can to soften the blow. And first of all, it is absolutely appalling that when the war in Iran starts taking a bad turn, he decides to launch a war on our best friend in Canada, just to try and divert. And it is so unfair because the communities that I grew up in, from Buffalo and then all along Lake Ontario, which is still Lake Ontario, want to make that point, all the way up to Plattsburgh - our economies are so intertwined. And it's not a foreign country. Those are our neighbors. They come over to our sporting events, the Buffalo Bills games, the Sabres games. Our farmers have great relationships. The manufacturing that goes on in the North Country, reliant on Canadian companies, Canadian steel, Canadian aluminum. And our wineries are suffering. I just sat down at the fair a couple days ago, talked to people who have the vineyards, they said the Canadians just stopped coming. So the tourism has dropped in all of our little towns in the North Country. They're not coming. Our relationship on the trade front is appalling now because our costs for our local governments and our farmers and our businesses and people in grocery stores are paying more now because of these tariffs.

So it just has to stop. It just has to stop. So I will try to find at the sub-national level, relationships where I can find carve-outs. Absolutely doing that now. I've spoken to the other premiers. I've spoken to Mark Carney. When New Yorkers and Americans are experiencing some of the highest grocery prices, highest gasoline prices, highest utility rates - and we do get energy from Canada as well - to do something like this is just going to drive more people, I'm telling you right now, to the Democratic line. They are committing such an egregious political mistake as well, because people are going to rebel against this. I will be happy to remind them who is doing this, who drove up the costs in the grocery store when parents are trying to get the food for their kids' dinner tonight, or when they're trying to buy backpacks and the aluminum lunch pail is more expensive because the aluminum comes from Canada and they had a high tariff on it - this is what families are dealing with. This is what I'm trying to counter in New York with middle class tax breaks and a billion dollars in utility breaks for people coming in the mail shortly, inflation rebate checks. I'm trying to do what I can, put money back in people's pockets. At the same time, the Republicans are just sucking it right out, because they don't care. They don't care.

Willie Geist, MSNOW: And Gene, of course, it's not like these tariffs are strategic in some way. There's no chessboard that we're looking at here. It's a temper tantrum from a man who's offended that Prime Minister Carney and others in Canada don't bend their knees, don't relinquish their national pride, that won't be a state. All of those things offend Donald Trump, so he slaps tariffs on a neighbor and an ally that raise prices in our country.

Eugene Robinson, MSNOW: Yeah, it's not a chessboard. It's a checkerboard that the president just turned over because he wasn't winning. And it's insane. Governor Hochul, I'm old enough to remember when there was great pride in the fact that the US-Canada border was the longest unprotected border in the world. And people who live near the border on both sides have intertwined lives. There are people who live in the US and work in Canada, and vice versa, and the people are going back and forth across the bridge all the time. Has that changed? Is that being changed now because of this tension that has been created by President Trump and is a divorce underway?

Governor Hochul: Oh, absolutely. And that's what's so sad about it, is for those of us who lived on the border and grew up with this expectation, you cross the Peace Bridge when you go to Chinese dinner in Fort Erie. You cross over to Canada. It's that close. You literally go into Canada for dinner sometimes. And they would come over and go to our fairs and our sporting events and our culturals. Three million fewer Canadians crossed the border into New York this past year. That's three million fewer people going up to the little shops in Lake Placid or Saranac Lake or coming to the Finger Lakes, to the wineries, as I mentioned. And even New York City - some of the hotels are telling me that the Canadians are just not coming, so they're not buying tickets on Broadway. So they are so offended, Gene, they are so insulted by how they've been treated by someone they considered their friend throughout our existence.

And they don't understand - I think it's going to take a long time to heal this relationship. All of us in the states who border Canada - particularly New York here, we have a 430-mile border with Canada - we want to heal the relationship. We want to say, "That's not us." Except Donald Trump represents our government to them. And so only when he is gone can they understand that that's never who we were. We were never hostile to Canada. We appreciate the synergy that we have between New York State in particular and Canada, with the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. I'm doing what I can and we launched a campaign again in New York to try and entice visitors to come over and have discounts and flying flags and just saying, "Hey we love you." But I can understand. You try to make my state - if I was Canadian - make us the 51st state? That's pretty abusive. That's pretty abusive to someone who had been a longtime friend. So I'm just asking: Would you just stop? Divert your attention to something. Just stop, Mr. President. Just leave us alone. Try to start putting the genie back in the bottle so we can have the relationships that were once normal through my entire life. I don't know how long it's going to take, but we're not there yet. They're not coming over.

Willie Geist, MSNOW: You're right. You're right, Governor. Americans love Canada. Just one man in Washington's having a tantrum at the moment. Democratic governor of New York, Kathy Hochul. Governor, thanks so much. We appreciate it.