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NY Gov. Hochul tells Trump boots on the ground would be bad for business
By
Jimmy Vielkind
Published Nov 17, 2025
Modified Nov 17, 2025
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Courtesy of the governor's office
By
Jimmy Vielkind
Published Nov 17, 2025
Modified Nov 17, 2025
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Gov. Kathy Hochul says she has a strategy for keeping President Trump from surging federal troops and agents into New York City: convince him it will be bad for business.
The Democratic governor, who has generally had a productive working relationship with the president, said she is enlisting executives to help drive home her new message.
It’s an evolution from her last tactic. Over the summer, Hochul leaned on falling crime rates to keep Trump from deploying troops in New York as he had in Chicago and Los Angeles.
The governor’s endorsement of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani — and his subsequent election — has complicated things. Trump has threatened to withhold federal funding from the city and denounces Mamdani as a communist, which he is not.
Hochul told reporters on Monday that she’s tweaked her message.
“I've had conversations with a lot of business leaders saying, ‘When the time comes, make sure that you also convey your concerns about what this would do to destabilize New York City and the outsize impact that this would have across America,’” Hochul recalled. “It would have an effect that other cities do not have because we are the financial center. And you cannot disturb that without consequences.”
Agents from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement are keeping a lower profile than they have in some other cities. In Chicago, agents rappelled from helicopters. This weekend ICE agents conducted sweeps in Charlotte outside of churches and grocery stores.
Kathryn Wylde, who leads the Partnership for New York City business group, said she agrees with Hochul.
“Political instability, social unrest that would result from sending in the National Guard would be negative for our economy,” Wylde said. “It will change the dynamic in New York in a negative way, and that’s the last thing we need right now.”
Hochul told reporters she has had "tabletop" exercises for several months including members of her administration and the NYPD, playing out their response to hypothetical situations. Mamdani and outgoing Mayor Eric Adams have been part of the strategy sessions as well, Hochul said.
Mamdani said this weekend that he would work with the president on reducing the cost of living, but that there would be a “unified front” including himself and Hochul to any National Guard deployment. Mamdani said sending troops is “not an attack on an individual politician like myself. It's an attack on the city.”
“Working together, using the courts, not backing down from your values and the clarity of your convictions. That's what we need to see in the city. That's what we'll deliver,” Mamdani said in an interview with ABC7NY’s Bill Ritter.
Trump told reporters this weekend that Mamdani would like to meet with him in Washington, D.C. Hochul said that was an encouraging sign. She expressed confidence that the president’s long ties to the city will stop him from taking drastic action.
“Chaos and instability in our streets generated by federal actions — whether it's flooding the city with ICE, bringing the National Guard or whatever he wants to do — is counterproductive for his economic objectives for our nation, as well as perhaps personal business interests,” she said. “Whether that holds post-election, I don't know.”
This story has been updated.
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Kathy Hochul
new york city
new york state
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Jimmy Vielkind
Jimmy Vielkind covers how state government and politics affect people throughout New York. He has covered Albany since 2008, most recently as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Jimmy led a team of reporters that won a New York Press Club award for coverage of Andrew Cuomo’s downfall and was on a team that won a Gerald Loeb Award for coverage of Amazon’s HQ2 process. A native of the Capitol Region, Jimmy has two degrees in urban planning. His position is funded by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Reach Jimmy at [email protected].
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