B-Roll, Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Declares State of Emergency and Initiates New Actions in Response to Trump Administration Cutting Off Food Assistance to Nearly 3 Million New Yorkers Starting November 1

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency and announced new actions in response to the Trump administration stripping food assistance from 3 million New Yorkers come November 1. As the GOP federal government shutdown continues, the Trump administration has refused to release billions in statutorily approved federal contingency funding that would address this crisis in states across the nation. By refusing to release this contingency funding, the federal government is leaving millions of New Yorkers without critical assistance they rely on to feed themselves and their families.

B-ROLL of the Governor packing boxes of food with Common Pantry workers and guests is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

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

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

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

 First of all, Stephen, thank you and everyone who's part of this incredible pantry — Common Pantry — you're doing God's work here on Earth. And all of you are angels. You are truly the angels. I'm not just saying that because I'm surrounded by clergy. I truly do feel that as I see all of you — could be doing anything else with your lives, but you've dedicated your time, your energy, your passion to others. And regardless of your faith, that's a unifying force that we're all on this earth to lift up others, make their lives better, a little easier. And that's why in this time of crisis, we come together as a community — elected leaders, community activists, faith community. We have our Commissioner of Education here who's understanding the need to keep our little kids fed in our schools. Commissioner Rosa, let's give her a round applause as well.

But Stephen, thank you to everyone who is part of the Common Pantry. I want to thank Senator Serrano — you'll be hearing from him momentarily, his district. As well as Assemblymember Eddie Gibbs. They represent this district with such heart and passion. We also have, as I mentioned, some members of the clergy, but also Reverend Al Sharpton, who's putting a national spotlight on this issue through his broadcast, calling out the injustices in all the various platforms that he has. Also Reverend Bernard, who's the pastor and CEO of the Christian Cultural Center, but he is also the head of our Interfaith Clergy Council. So I wanted to welcome him here today and thank him for inviting members of the Clergy Council.

You'll also be hearing from Monsignor Kevin Sullivan, the Executive Director of Catholic Charities. We've worked closely together for most of my life as a young kid going around with my dad to collect money, door to door for Catholic Charities asking support for others. But also other members of government — Jordan Wright has joined us. Manny De Los Santos and Shaun Abreu are here.

We'll also hear from other people affected. I mean this, we think about the whole ecosystem of feeding people. Yes, there's the direct recipients, the families, the individuals who come here in person or have food brought to their homes, but also if they're using SNAP benefits, they're going into a store, large and small bodegas, and they rely on that source of income from their customers. So there's an effect there when that money dries up. And where does a lot of that food come from? We are an agricultural state. It doesn't feel like it when you're in Harlem, but we truly are. So there's a lot of upstate small farms, big farms. They're also affected by this. So the ripple effect just goes on and on.

And I will also say this in light of the threats to our immigrant community, the uncertainty of knowing whether or not you show up in a line on the street, are you sitting prey to ICE agents who are watching for just that to happen? As I saw the people lined up out front, I said, “Gosh, they take the people that are going into the courtrooms legally following what the law tells them to do. They're taking them and shipping them to places unknown. They're going to factories in Upstate New York, separating moms, nursing moms from babies under the age of one, still not connected yet, and they could also be preying on people, not just the ones going to churches and synagogues and mosques and places of worship.” Because they are. But what about the vulnerability of people standing on a street like this, that they're going to have to do because they can't get the food on their own? Now they're going to have to come and rely on programs and services like this.

So I'm looking at the whole scale of this. This is all bad. There's no way to sugarcoat this on what is being unleashed on our people, not just here, but across the entire country. And I call this out because you were here in Harlem on Monday, talking about what we see coming. It's coming. It's coming. There's still time to stop this. It doesn't have to be this way. Republicans in Washington, get off the plane from globetrotting over there around the rest of the world. Get back in your office. Call in the leaders of the Republican Party — who, by the way, run the House, the Senate and the White House. Get together and figure this out.

And by the way — I feel like I'm bringing a lot of bad news here — but at the same time, we're losing the SNAP benefits. People are going to be getting their health premiums, the notice of what they have to pay for healthcare. Now, I think a lot of people didn't know that what they're getting is heavily subsidized because of President Barack Obama and the Congress — and I was part of Congress. I lost my seat because I supported the Affordable Care Act, but it was the right thing to do. They're benefiting today from subsidies that were increased during the pandemic as well. So people started thinking, well, that must be the cost of healthcare. It's going to go up 40 percent for many families. They're going to get the notice this month. The sticker shock when that comes in the mail or how they get their information is going to just say, “Are you kidding me? How much more can I take?” Because those price increases will go up starting in January, not next year.

And I'm not going to mention all you're losing Medicaid because of the Big Ugly Bill that was passed this summer. So we got different pots going on. Some of the impact is because of the shutdown. It's because of the law that was passed last summer.

And so right now, 48 hours from now, the clock's going to run out on 42 million Americans, including three million New Yorkers. And apparently our cries for help — their cries for help have fallen on deaf ears. And that's just not in a district like this. Those are in the seven Republican districts from Long Island to Staten Island and Upstate New York. Where people are turning their backs on their own constituents. I've got a little advice for them. I've been in office a long time. That's not good politics for you either because people are going to remember next year how when life got really hard for them and they asked you to try and reverse this and use your power that was given to you by the voters of your district and use that to help us and stop this from happening. And when they just ignore their constituents, there need to be consequences because these are going to people in rural, Upstate New York and in places as densely populated as here in Harlem that are going to be hurting and they should not ignore that specter.

So, they're inflicting pain on their own constituents, but that's not who we are. That's not who we are. We'll always embody the true spirit of New Yorkers. We stand up for each other when we're under attack. It's in our DNA, we can't help ourselves. That's what we've always done. We are a community of neighbors. I see that out here.

As I said, I was helping pack some boxes of food. And I want to thank others who stepped up. All of those who truly care. I mentioned some of the clergy of Bishop Heyd here as well. Episcopal Church or Bishop David Greenfield is also here. David, are you here? I didn't see David. Not here? Does he want a grand entrance to me? Does he want a drum roll? David Greenfield soon to be arriving. The CEO of Met Council is doing an extraordinary job and making sure that people have what they need. And Dr. Debbie here, representing the faith community as well. So many people.

It's hard to think about this because I was up there packing some proteins, some beans. I'm trying to think — I'm a mom, how am I going to turn this into food? I grew up with a family of eight that wouldn't have gone very far. And my parents, they took us to get the day old bread from the used food store. The old food store around the corner. We didn't get the fresh bread. We bought our clothes at used clothing stores. We bought them on layaway because we didn't have money. Yeah, we weren't starving. I'm never going to exaggerate what we did. We ate a lot of spam, we ate a lot of stuff out of cans. A lot of Hamburger Helper, but I don't remember going to bed with my stomach growling. We were never that bad off. And there's people in our city and the state that I love and cherish — that's happening. So mom's thinking about little kids' stomachs growling or sitting in a classroom. That's hard to accept. And how can that happen in this great country? It's the most prosperous, wealthy country in human history. How can we let that happen? How can we turn our backs on people — 800,000 seniors, nearly a million kids? And this will be historic because this is the first government shutdown in our history where they did not make an accommodation for food.

Every other one, they said, “We can make our political points, we can do this, we can do that. Air traffic controller, some flights are delayed.” Okay, that's all painful and bad. But never before have they literally said, “We're going to stop feeding Americans.” So we're not going to be passive observers to this.

I have to be honest: no state, including our own, can backfill the money because I'm going to tell you a number. $650 million every month is what we get from the federal government — our people do — for SNAP programs. We can't backfill that, but we have some strategies. My team has been working around the clock to make sure that we can minimize the impacts, making sure that no one misses a meal. Last week we just kicked off $11 million in emergency food relief. Monday we fast tracked $30 million in emergency food relief.

But I went back to my team and I said, “That's not going to be enough.” So that's why today I'm officially declaring an emergency. This is a food emergency and I want to unleash every tool at our disposal to keep New Yorkers from going hungry. Here's what that means. In addition to the money I just mentioned, my team has secured an additional $65 million on top of that.

The new emergency funding brings our total investment this week alone to $106 million. That'll provide over 56 million meals to help stock our food pantries and our distribution centers. Number two, I need more people. Steven, you mentioned 500 families. Cummins. Where's Steven? Steven. 585 Families. You need more help. You need more people. So what I'm deploying is something we started our Empire State Service Corps and our SUNY Civic Engagement Corps. I'm bringing in students. I'm bringing in students from all over the state to help out here, they'll be your frontline fighters. I'm bringing them right here all over New York.

Third, as I mentioned our Commissioner. We're continuing to find ways to utilize our schools as food hubs. Right now and I'm real proud of this, working with my legislators. We now for the first time have committed that the state will cover the full cost of breakfast and lunch for every single school child, everywhere in the entire state — everywhere.

But I'm thinking, what if we pack some extra sandwiches and they can take them home? Because that might be dinner. There might be a younger child — preschooler — who needs something before he or she goes to bed. So how do we figure that out? So we're working closely and I want to commend, again, the Commissioner for helping us with this.

We're going to work it out. We're told that we're not going to be — they're sending down nasty messages from Washington. Nasty, like you cannot use any state dollars and expect to get reimbursed after this shutdown is over. It's like, okay, that's kind of harsh, but we'll keep going. We're being told that we cannot send food home.

Okay, I'm going to find an Enron or some way to get around that one. And I'm thinking, I said, well, can we describe it as leftovers from lunch? Okay it's not new food, it's leftovers. So we're working on it, but we're going to get this done, right? Betty, let's get this done. I want to thank Betty Rosa so much for help.

And also, I'm setting people not sure where to go. I mean, there are people who maybe need this help every week, and there's others who this is a very foreign world to. They don't even know where to go, right? So we have our Office of Temporary Disability Services will have a page of resources.

So we will tell you where the closest food bank is and it's newyork.gov/foodassistance to learn more. And lastly, I just want to put this out there. This is a moment for our community to rise up and respond to something that can only be described as a moral crisis, because I believe it's immoral for people to suffer because Republicans will not unleash the food emergency funds that are sitting there. That's immoral, it's immoral for the government, the federal government of the most prosperous wealthy nation on this earth to allow children to go hungry and wake up even hungrier because you don't get full during the night.

I believe it's immoral for our federal government not to pay the workers who are showing up every day and being forced to rely on others' generosity as we hear federal workers, again, finding their way to food banks. And I believe it's immoral for individuals and families to have a safety net that they have counted on in their time of need, literally ripped away from them while Republicans play political games.

So this is a morality question to me. So today is a call to action. Our philanthropies and frontline foods organizations need more help. And I want to thank some who are here. CEO of r4, Paul Breitenbach. Paul, raise your hand right here, Paul thank you. Thank you.

Paul is sending over six tons of food to New Yorkers this week. That is amazing. So that's a challenge to others. I'm putting out a challenge to New York because we have compassionate good people, and I need your help. Yes, the young volunteers, the students will bring them here.

We'll put in more money, we'll help out there, but I need some big dollars to show up as well. I need those big volumes of food to show up as well. So every business can donate food or money. Every person can volunteer. Every place of worship, and many do already can be a place of pickup or distribution. And every school can be a respite from the harshness of hunger.

And if they shut down, the Republicans continue down this inhumane path. My team stands up, stands ready. I'll keep digging. I'll keep finding. We'll find the path forward and I'll continue working with our great Attorney General Tish James and go to court because we're suing on this one as well. We're in court on this one and any other challenges?

So let me wrap up by saying this, the human cost of this shutdown is so real. It's not just a story you're seeing in the news. It is real, real human beings are suffering. This Saturday, moms across the country might just skip their own meals so their kids can eat.

That's not in some story somewhere, that's reality. Seniors rationing what they have left in the cupboard because their SNAP benefits aren't going to be there. We also, as I mentioned, we've got the food supply system, their food pantries, mom and pop groceries, bodega owners, our farmers. We've been joined by Julia Van Loon, an independent distributor from our farms.

You're going to hear from Julia, you're going to hear from Ruben Luna and the owner of Key Food right here in Harlem, because they're also going to suffer. They're also going to feel the effects of this. And I'm going to say one more thing because this really upsets me. I'm really upset. I mean, this is like, this is bad. This is bad.

In September, the Department of Agriculture in Washington that oversees this, they put out a message saying that they'll be able to keep the food coming during the shutdown. That made us feel good. Okay. They understand they had over $5 billion setting aside in emergency SNAP funds. They said their green lighting, the use of that money, but somehow the memo that said they were going to do that is no longer on the website.

Mysteriously disappeared and now when I wrote to the Secretary of Agriculture and said, “Can you unleash the money?” And other Governors did and they said, “There's nothing we can do.” I'm not buying that, because clearly that means they don't care about 42 million Americans who'll be hungry now, even through Thanksgiving possibly. Small business owners and farmers.

So my message to Republicans in Washington is to get back to work. Restore the healthcare premiums, turn the Federal Government back on and start feeding hungry Americans once again. And I look at scripture a lot. I was raised in a social justice Catholic household. Isaiah 58:10 says, “If you spend yourself on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed. Your light will rise from the darkness and your night will become like noonday.”

I'm honored to stand here with people, understand that call to action. All of these individuals here and I'm reminded also this one we talked about at my dinner table all the time, teachings of Jesus Christ. When I was hungry, you gave me something to eat. When I was thirsty, you gave me a drink because whatsoever you do, for the least of my brothers, you're doing for me. And if you do not show compassion for the needy, then you are not on the side of righteousness. I believe that the Republicans can cross back onto the side of righteousness right now, But right now they're straying very far. We must be calling them out on that. And caring for others is fundamental to my faith teachings and the faith teachings of all of us.

But somehow that has not gotten through to the faith teachings of those in Washington with the power to stop this from happening. So it's a painful time for our brothers and sisters, but I'll never give up hope. Oh, we live on hope in New York. Because we always have the capacity, the deep well of compassion and love for others that allows us to rise up.

And this is the moment we are doing that. My friends do not underestimate the power of the people of this community, the City or the State when it comes to fighting for those who've been knocked down because we're on their side. Thank you very much, everyone.